THE TEACHING OF GERMAN IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS SALES AGENTS New York : LEMCKE & BUECHNER 30-32 West 27th Street London : HUMPHREY MILFORD Amen Corner, E.G. Toronto : HUMPHREY MILFORD 25 Richmond Street, W. The Teachings of.German IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS . |vu^^-^ BY ELIJAH W. BAGSTER-COLLINS Associate Professor of German m Teachers College, Columbia University Keto ¥orlt COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1915 All rights reserved Copyright 1904 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY Setup,eIectrot7i>ed and published. October, 1904; Sepriated, April, 1907 ; October, 1908; October, 1910; September, 1913 July, 191S .^ -^ Press of The new Era Printing company lancaster. pa- TO MY HELPMATE 331078 PREFACE. The following pages represent the outgrowth of experi- ence in high school work, of lectures given to intending teachers, and of a first-hand study of modern language in- struction in various parts of Germany. The book is planned to give teachers, in book form, a helpful discussion of the main elements that go to make up a modern language course in secondary schools. Much of the material has long since been common property, perhaps, but has never, to my knowledge, been presented in so detailed a form, with the possible exception of " The Practical Study of Languages," by Sweet, which also serves a different purpose. This book will have to deal largely with answering two questions : Firstly, what is the best work we can hope to do in a course extending over a maximum period of four years in the high school ? Secondly, what has experience to teach us as to the best way to do it ? We are still in the experimental stage of language teach- ing, and probably shall be for some time to come. The time is not ripe for any man to come and say, and scien- tifically prove, " my method is the method of language teaching." We still lack scientific data with regard to the mental processes involved in learning a foreign language. Any exposition of method, then, will have to be broad and eclectic in nature, and derived very largely from one's own vii Vm PREFACE. experience, and from the experience of other teachers of the same and different generations working under similar condi- tions. It must consist in describing a plan loosely enough jointed to work successfully under varying conditions, one containing important points in method the teacher should keep in mind, and an attempt has been made to set this forth in the present book. CONTENTS. Pagb. Introduction 1 Chapter I. The Value of German 6 Chapter II. Aim of a Course 16 Chapter III. Pronunciation 39 Chapter IV. Work in Speaking 70 Chapter V. Grammar. . . . . . . 105 Chapter VI. Written Exercises 137 Chapter VTE. Composition. ...... 149 Chapter VIII. Beading 162 Chapter IX. Translation 187 Chapter X, Vocabulary 215 Bibliography 223 IX THE TEACHING OF GERMAN IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS. INTRODUCTION. Some definite work has already been done in the United States towards putting modern language instruction upon a better basis as regards aim and method ; for example, the report ^ presented by the Committee of Movement Twelve, at the session of the Modern Lan- m u. s. A. guage Association held in Charlottesville, Va., in 1898. It is an attempt, by way of recommendation, to bring about some degree of harmony in the rather chaotic conditions that naturally exist in a nation so educationally decentralized as our own. Though brief, the report is com- prehensive and practical, and deserves the careful study of every modern language teacher. After dealing with the aim and value of modern languages as a culture study, there follows a brief sketch and critique of some of the well-known systems or methods. The report then seeks to build up, from this preliminary discussion, a course more or less eclectic in method, to suit our conditions. Very valuable are the suggestions given to teachers, and everywhere the report is characterized by a wise conservatism, so desirable in the present status of modern language work in the United States. In this book there will be an attempt to enlarge upon some of the points already discussed in this report, more * "Keport of Committee on Modern Languages," Washington, 1899. 2 1 2'.; ' f ^E' TEEAlCHING of GERMAN. /e^pejci^liy by bdngxng. to our aid the best results of recent modern language teaching in Germany. No Movement country can show such a rapid, and, in the In Germany. main, healthy development in modern lan- guage instruction during the last generation as Germany. But although the study of the so-called ** Reform Move- ment " in Germany is extremely rich in valuable ideas, it will not do to introduce the " made in Germany " product as a whole into this country. It must be adapted to American conditions and American ideals to bring about successful results. We must work out our own school problem just as Germany is trying to do. Even there the problem of modern language teaching is yet unsettled in many essential points. Due to good school organization, excellent equip- ment and personality on the part of many teachers, however, the work has reached, here and there, a high degree of effect- iveness. Without going deeply into the history of this notable movement (which would lead us too far afield, and is not essential to our present purpose) its beginning dates back, roughly speaking, to the publishing of the Tandem^^^ anonymous pamphlet by "Quousque Tan- dem " : " Der Sprachunterricht muss umkeh- ren!'' ^ Sporadic attempts had already been made, of course, in different parts of Germany, towards the improvement of French and English work in the schools. Professor Victor, of Marburg, who turned out to be the author of this work, simply started the ball rolling in this brief philippic, and since that time, the movement has increased almost steadily in power. The ideas suggested by Victor 1 <* Der Sprachunterricht muss umkehren ! " Vie tor, Heilbronn, 1881, INTRODUCTION. 3 and others were worked out and tested with consid- erable success in the schoolroom, and were later incorporated, to greater or less extent, in the " Lehrplane " of the various States. Many of the reformers have undoubtedly gone too far in their zeal. Every great reform has its radical party. But, on the whole, the influence of the movement has been a sound and healthy one on the rank and file of modern lan- guage teachers. Direktor Walter (of the Musterschule, Frankfurt-a-M.) gives in his " Die Reform des neusprachlichen Unterrichts auf Schule und Universitat,^' ^ a good statement of Victor's ideas. He writes : " Nicht der tote Buch- *• Das lebende g^^^j^g sondern das lebende Wort solle in den Wort. ' Vordergrund treten; die neuere Sprache sei nicht an einzelnen unzusammenhangenden Satzen, sondern am lebensvollen Sprachstoffe zu erlernen und durch das Sprechen und das mundliche Verarbeiten des Sprachstoffs zum festen Eigentum des Schiilers zu machen. " Die Grammatik sei nicht mehr an erster Stelle zu erlernen, sondern habe als Abstraktion der Sprache ihr gegeniiber zuriickzutreten und sei auf induktivem Wege aus dem gewonnenen Sprachstoffe abzuleiten. An die Stelle der bisher iiblichen Uebersetzungen aus der Muttersprache in die fremde Sprache miisse die freie Behandlung der Sprache, wie im Worte, so auch in der Schrift treten. " Vor allem zeigt Yietor, wie wenig Wert man bisher auf die Aussprache der fremden lebenden Sprachen gelegt habe, ja wie diese nach einem Wort seines Gesinnungsgenossen ^ "Die Reform des neusprachlichen Unterrichts auf Schule und Uni- versitat," Walter, Marburg, 1901. 4 THE TEACHING ^F GERMAN. Professor Dr. Trautmann in Bonn zum grossen Teil ^grauen- voU ' sei, und zeigt uns den Weg, wie unter Beniitzung der inzwischen emporgebliihten jungen Wissenschaft der Phonetik eine genaue ^^utreine Aussprache zu lehren und wie hierbei stets vom Laut auszugehen sei. This also represents the desires, in the main, of the Reformers since the days of Yietor.^' The newest element, perhaps, is the attention given to pronunciation. This work was greatly aided by the recent results in the scientific study of phonetics of such men as Sievers, Techmer, Trautmann, Yietor, Sweet Elements in and Bell. The " method,'^ as represented by e *' Reform, -^g ^^^^ exponents, owes its success largely, however, to the careful synthesis and adaptation to pres- ent school needs — the inheritance of centuries. There has been a redistribution of values, notably the important place given to reading real texts and the oral side of language study, the subordinate place given to grammar, and the rearranged method of its study. ♦ The details of the system have been worked out more carefully than ever be- fore, and the various elements have been harmonized with greater success than has heretofore been attained. To be sure, the success has not been wholly due to method. The increased effectiveness of the teaching-body has everywhere been an important contributing factor. Indirectly, the " method " has brought this about because of the stimulat- ing effect it has had on the teachers. The ^^ method," as illustrated in the Reform literature and by its best ex- ponents, made extraordinary demands upon the modern language teacher. To meet the demands, it meant other INTROBUariON. o ideals of training. It was no longer sufficient for a teacher to have gained a grammatical and reading knowledge of the language. If the pupils were to be taught to use the language in speaking, naturally the teacher must possess an adequate oral command of that language. The "paper- method '' would have died a natural death if there had not been a revival, a requickened life, in the study and appre- ciation of what modern languages stand for in a modern cur- riculum, and earnest attempts on the part of a large body of teachers, particularly the younger teachers, to meet the new demands. I consider the awakening to the importance of having well-equipped teachers one of the greatest results of the Reform movement. CHAPTER I. THE VALUE OF GERMAN. The discussion of the value of German, as a school sub- ject, naturally divides itself into three parts : First, its practical value. Second, its cultural value. Third, its formal or disciplinary value. " We study modern languages preeminently because they are useful " ^ looked at from the utilitarian standpoint, and as a means of opening our minds to a literature and civili- zation, a knowledge of which the educated Practical American needs as an essential part of his intel- lectual equipment. If we take into considera- tion the more purely practical possibilities inherent in our subject, we might argue in favor of it, by way of comparison with Latin, as follows : Whatever position Latin enjoyed in the Middle Ages as a spoken and written language, its day, as such, has forever passed. Such knowledge is only of value to the Roman church, and to a very narrow circle of schol- "Dead" perhaps. The traveller and the scholar Languages. ^ r r no longer need Latin to make themselves understood. In this sense Latin and Greek may be said to be " dead " languages, as contrasted with the " living '' lan- guages of to-day. In another sense, of course, they are 1 "The Teaching of Languages in Schools," Widgery, London, 1903. 6 THE VALUE OF GERMAN. 7 far from dead, for they still live for us in their literatures, and in the formative influence they undoubtedly have, more or less directly, on our lives and ideals. An understanding of the works that have come down to us seems to me, to- day at least, to be the natural aim of their study. All the rules of grammar and syntax of the language, studied and learned, serve this purpose, namely, that the student may thereby more accurately interpret Latin and Greek authors. All exercises, all writing of sentences and composition, all oral work, would aim to give the student a firmer and surer grasp of the technique of the classic author. As for the thought, it is best secured by changing the foreign idiom into one with which the student is familiar, the mother- tongue. That is the simplest, the quickest, and the surest way. Naturally this is not by any means the final aim, which would include many other things — an understanding and clear interpretation of the work as a whole in its pecu- liar form, and no good teaching would fall short of this aim. Modern languages also live in their literatures, but these literatures are constantly changing and developing. Miinch, in his "Vermischte Aufsatze,"^ likens them to a flowing stream, not a beautiful lake whose shores are Languages. clearly defined to us, as are the classical lan- guages to-day. But only half the life of a modern language is represented by its literature. The spoken language of every-day life, differing more or less from the written language of books, is another side which must receive due recognition. However strong may be the literary side of German, we mtfst not forget that it is no * " Vermischte Aufsatze," Miinch, Berlin, 1896. 8 THE TEACHING OF GEKMAN. mere book language — it is the common language of one of the greatest nations of modern times, a nation with which we are closely associated in many ways. Commercial ties between Germany and the United States, for example, are a factor which cannot be put aside without comment in judging the value of German from the utilitarian standpoint, and especially when we come tc consider what it is most essential to emphasize in a secondary school course in German. It would only be a narrow and sordid idea of the function of a subject to regard it as representing so much definite stock in trade to be turned later on into so many dollars and cents. The secondary school is not meant to be a place where pupils can receive special training in German and French to fit them for a foreign clerkship, still the teacher has no right to forget that French arid German may come to possess a commercial value in the life of the pupils, and should be taught with this end in view, in so far as it does not conflict with other results of greater educational importance. Closely allied to the foregoing thought is the importance that travel has, within recent years, assumed amongst Amer- icans. No doubt one can manage in these days to travel all over Europe and never need more than a chance phrase or so. To reap, however, the full educational benefits that undoubtedly accrue from travelling, it is important to have a first-hand knowledge of the language of the country you are in. Surely one gets a very distorted view, one quite out of perspective, of foreigners and foreign life, if it is merely seen in Ameri- canized or Anglicized hotels. It is far better to be able THE VALUE OF GERMAN. 9 to use even a meagre school knowledge of German than to be dependent upon a guide for everything. But all the advantages in travel that come from previous study of a foreign language, and particularly from the power to use the language in speaking, are obvious, and I need not dwell upon them. We must, however, guard against over-estimat- ing the educational value and the importance of the ability to speak, as well as under-estimating it. We can deal with this phase of the question better in the next chapter, in the attempt to fix an aim in planning a high school course. The scholar has long since needed at least a reading knowl- edge of French and German for his necessary development. The doctor, the student of art, of architecture, the engineer, the clergyman and men engaged in many Vaiue^* other occupations, are constantly finding out that German scholars have something to offer them, something in their particular field it is essential they should know. There are many translations of great books, to be sure, but the best books are often not available — at any rate until years after they are wanted. It is idle to suppose they ever will be. But the importance of a knowledge of German is not confined to the scholar or the progressive professional man. It is expected of everj educated man that he should understand the position occu- pied by Germany in the civilized world, and there is no better way to learn to appreciate the best that German civil- ization has to offer us, than by studying the German lan- guage and its literature^ By reading and absorbing the best literature of our own language, by interesting ourselves in all the intellectual and spiritual life of our own race, we 10 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. enrich our personality. It is simply going one step farther to absorb the mental life of such great races as the French and German. Our thoughts are expanded and deepened, and made more complete and rich. We gain greater men- tal and critical balance, and greater appreciation of what our own literature stands for, and, indirectly, what American and German civilization stand for. After all, the language and literature represent the people better than any other one aspect of their civilization. In studying German, then, pupils are studying about Germans and Germany. There is no one who would dispute that, sooner or later in his ed- ucation, the individual should become acquainted with the aims, customs, and peculiar traits of those civilizations which have done so much for humanity. In this way he begins to learn to take an intelligent interest in things and eveuts outside his own country, and, undoubtedly, the very best place to make this beginning is in the class-room study of German and French. Waetzoldt said in an address delivered at the fifth meeting of the German modern language association held at Berlin in 1892 : " Ein dreifaches Bewusstsein fordern wir von einem Gebil- deten : ein Yolksbewusstsein, ein Zeitbewusstsein, ein Welt- bewusstsein. Ein dreifaches Verstandnis des Menschlichen . soil hohere Bildung dem Einzelnen eroffnen. Cultured in drei grosse geistige Beziehungen ihn stellen : ^^^ zum Vaterlande, zur An tike, zu den mitleben- den Kulturvolkern. Als letztes bewusstes Glied einer Ian- gen Kette verbindet der Lehrer den heranwachsenden Menschen mit diesen drei geistigen Welten. Die vaterliin- THE VALUE OP GERMAN. 11 dische Welt der Vergangenheit und Gegenwart eroffnet ihm der Lehrer des Deutschen und der Geschichte, die Geistes- welt des Altertums der klassische Philolog ; der Leh- rer des Franzosichen und Englischen (Deutschen) aber verbindet den Schiller mit der Kulturwelt der Gegenwart ausserhalb seines Yaterlandes, er erganzt die nationale Bil- dung zur Weltbildung ; er erzieht im Knaben den bewussten Mitarbeiter an den grossen gemeinsamen Aufgaben der Menschheit, indem er mittels der fremden Sprache und ihrer Werke ihm das freie Yerstandnis fur Heimat, Leben, und Sitte der beiden grossten mitlebenden Yolker zu erschliessen trachtet.'' ^ It is only a smajll beginning we can hope to make in even the best planned high school course. If properly fostered, however, an interest may be awakened within the minds of Appreciation *^^ pupils for the great nations beyond our of Foreign own, which will- bear good fruit in their * ^^^' later intellectual development. In the school the pupil should begin to learn that, however great his native country is, it is impossible for it alone to work out the salvation of humanity. He should learn to appreciate the good qualities of other nations, and judge their weakness or strength with some degree of correctness and fairness. Foreigners often criticise our civilization severely, sometimes with justice, more often unjustly, through ignorance. And we do the same ! Certain traits of character, habits, manners, peculiar to foreigners, we condemn simply because we are not accustomed to them. Much of the enmity and dislike * " Die Aufgabe des neusprachlichen Unterrichts und die Vorbildung der Lehrer," Waetzoldt, Berlin, 1892. 12 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. between nations is due to utter ignorance of each other on the part of the masses. Every political action is eyed with suspicion and distrust, and their very best characteristics are misinterpreted because misunderstood. Surely there is a great work for modern languages and modern language teachers, in battering down some of the prejudices that exist largely as a result of generations of ignorance. The formal or disciplinary value of German lies deeper than the cultural, and any discussion is open to dispute. Everywhere there are quicksands into which one is likely to fall if one attempts to reduce the value to of German ^^^ anything like a definite system. We are in need of scientific work, in this special field, by language scholars possessing the necessary equipment in psychology. A beginning has been made by A. Ohlert in '' Das Studium der Sprachen und die geistige Bildung." ^ These pages and other works of Ohlert, notably his " Allge- meine Methodik des Sprachunterrichts in kritischer Begriin- dung,'' ^ deserve careful study by those who are interested in the solution of this perplexing problem. Unfortunately the results obtained by him are almost negative, especially when we consider the great emphasis laid in the last cen- tury upon the special mental training to be derived from foreign language study, particularly from the study of Latin and Greek grammar. Since the days of Pestalozzi, the catch- word "formale Bildung" has played a great role in * " Das Stadium, der Sprachen und die geistige Bildung. Sammlung von Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der padagogischen Psychologie," Ohlert, 2. Band, 7. Heft, Berlin, 1899. * " Allgemeine Methodik des Sprachunterrichts in kritischer Begriin- dung," Ohlert, Hannover, 1893. THE VALUE OF GERMAN. 13 pedagogy. When speaking the foreign language (here Latin) ceased to be the chief practical aim of instruction, Latin grammar began more and more to take its place, more especially as there was nothing else to replace it. In the study of grammar pedagogues came to believe that they pos- sessed a universal means of strengthening the mind. The mental gymnastics, as practised on the difficult rules of gram- mar and syntax, and, particularly, translations from the mother-tongue into Latin, were believed to sharpen the pupil's mind and strengthen his memory and will power, besides training in logical thinking. The theory of the dis- ciplinary value of foreign language study was based upon two assumptions, both of which are now discarded by psy- chologists as unsound. It was assumed in the first place that language, particularly Latin, was logical in its structure, and hence offered material par excellence for teaching logical thought and its expression. However, modern psychology would hold that language is primarily only psychological by nature. Even if we grant that Latin is excellent as a type of language and that the pupil by studying it will doubtless grow in intellectual power, experience ieachesusdaily_that one may have a well disciplined mind, and may be a logical thinker without having had the unique training that Latin was and is still held to give. Logical thinking comes to one as the result of the study of the thought, and not from study of the linguistic form in which the thought is moulded. English, then, and the various sciences, can also be made effective instruments for sound training. Neither Latin nor the modern foreign language holds a monopoly as regards *' formale Bildung." 14 THE TEACHING OF GEEMAK. The second psychological fallacy was the belief that the mind is made up of faculties which can be developed in much the same way as we develop our muscles. Modern psychology admits that the senses alone are capable of being directly trained. The pianist can train his sense of touch or sound, the artist of form or color, etc. We still use the terms memory, will, judgment, for the sake of convenience of terminology. They are, however, only attributes of the mind, manifestations of our mental life. The mind itself is a unit. Let us take, for instance, reason. If we coiild give exercises to increase a general faculty of reasoning, we should expect a man to furnish us with sound judgments on any subject we might choose. We all know, however, that the value of a man^s judgments depends upon the clearness and sharpness of his concepts in a given field of thought and his ability to analyze and utilize them well in a particular case. We might discuss memory and the other so-called faculties of the mind in much the same way. In every case we should find that we are not dealing with training in the old- fashioned sense at all. Latterly, one hears less of making formal training, in the narrow sense, a pedagogical aim in itself, especially in the study of modern languages. Teachers take it for granted that a certain value lurks in every subject, if taught in accordance with psychological laws, as we understand them, without bothering much about the peculiar worth of a par- ticular study judged from this standpoint alone. They seek to find other more positive reasons for the study of modern languages, especially along the lines social in aim. Briefly, what disciplinary value can we definitely ascribe to language THE VALUE OF GERMAN. 15 study — in the present case German — in high school work? The study of forms and syntax, the translation from and into the foreign tongue, the acquisition and study of a vocabulary, all these have a moulding influence on the mind. The study of a foreign language implies a never-ending, many-sided, process of comparison with the mother-tongue, in thought, and in expression of thought. Each nation has its own peculiar point of view. It sees the world without with dif- ferent eyes, and accordingly emphasizes different aspects in its language. By this constant exercise in comparison, ideas take on not only a fuller significance, but become sharper and more clearly defined. It is possible that little is added numerically to our ideas, but, on the other hand, what we already know is broadened and supplemented by fresh new views and ways of looking at things, and new modes of expression. Moreover, in learning modern languages there is another pedagogical factor present : the emphasis laid upon the spoken language, in the class-room, gives rise to exer- cises having a distinct value in themselves. The training in correct articulation, in the power to hear and read accurately and readily, in speaking — by which the pupils gain flexi- bility and security in the control of vocabulary and forms, - all these undoubtedly have a decided pedagogical value. CHAPTER II. AIM OF A COURSE. The practical outcome of a school course is the first problem to confront us, and hence it is of vital importance to con- sider at the outset what it is best worth our while to accom- plish, before attempting to determine how it is to be accom- plished. A clear insight into what is the most important end to be kept in view, a separation of the major from the minor, a concentration of the many lines of study in planning a lan- guage course, these are far from simple to attain, yet it is only by close attention to these points we can secure any high grade of efficiency in the work. And even after having made, what appears to be, the best choice, the path is not easy to follow. There are so many things to be done, and some are so alluring, that it is far too easy in actual practice to become unbalanced as to the relative value of this or that kind of work, and, in so doing, to lose sight of the ultimate goal we set out to gain. The highest ideal knowledge of a foreign language would mean, that one could use it as a second mother-tongue; that one could use it with equal degree of freedom in speak- ing, reading, or writing. It is an open Highest question whether one can ever become abso- Ideal. ^ lutely bi-lingual, whether it is possible to command equal mastery of two sets of symbols to express one's ideas. At any rate, a close approximation would take years of the most strenuous application, under the most 16 AIM OF A COUESE. 17 favorable circumstances. Even then the large majority would never accomplish it, in fact, only the most gifted. The most favorable conditions, obviously, are found in the land where the foreign language is spoken. But mere years of association with the people is by no means all. The advantages of environment must, at every cwaditions. point, be supplemented by earnest, untiring effort after perfection. From residence abroad, there is a downward scale of values of conditions for the acquisition of a foreign language, from study and association with a tutor who lives with his charge (as sug- gested by Locke some centuries ago), to lessons under a priviite teacher. If we confine the discussion to the practi- cal requirements, we must relegate the school to a very low place in the scale, and, other things being equal, such as equipment of teacher, number of hours, etc., the larger the classes, the lower the chances of success. How to teach languages from books, and how to overcome the seemingly insurmountable difficulties of environment, has troubled thoughtful pedagogues for ages. Even in the days when Latin was the spoken language of the world of culture, and was practically the only subject taught in the schools, there were constant complaints that the results were far from being commensurate with the time expended, and so we find many methodizers, Ascham, Ratke, Comenius, and others trying hard to systematize the work, and increase the pupil's practical command of Latin. Those were golden days for practical results in Latin study, and yet the obstacles to be overcome, and the limitations that had to be set, were not small, if we can judge from a study of these methodizers' books. 3 18 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. It is obvious to any one who has had experience in teach- ing modern languages, or has given thought to the matter, that the present day school curriculum does not warrant teachers laying equal stress upon speaking, Reading, reading, and writing. To attempt to carry or Writing? ^^^ such a scheme under present secondary school conditions, is to court failure. The teacher will not find time to do any one sufficiently well. Lest we squan- der valuable time it will be better to have a clear idea of relative values, and, as an outcome, to make a careful adjustment of the various kinds of work ; to decide upon making one thing the chief goal towards which we strive ; and only to use other forms wherever there will be a dis- tinct gain thereby. Shall we lay chief stress upon speaking, reading, or writing? The choice ought to be largely deter- mined by at least these factors : time and school conditions, demands of society and probable future use, and greatest permanent value in the intellectual life of the individual. After some years' experience, and under tolerably favor- able conditions, I am convinced that there is time in a sec- ondary school course of four years, or even three, to teach pupils how to speak German with a consid- th ^ CM^f Aim ^^^^^^ degree of fluency and precision, within a very limited field. We can teach what one might call, for lack of a better term, travel talk. We can expect to do even more than this, I feel warranted in saying. Given a clever, interesting teacher, excellently equipped for just this type of work, and put him in charge of a class of a dozen or fifteen, and the chances are distinctly favorable for success, within the narrow boundaries set. AIM OF A COURSE. 19 But, on the other hand, every moment of the time must be utilized for oral exercises, or work intimately connected with them and expressly meant to further a conversational readi- ness. There will be little time that can be devoted to read- ing for reading's sake. The only reading will be of such a nature as to be capable of being moulded into conversa- tion, and the vocabulary will necessarily be restricted to the common words of every-day life, for it is only by keeping down the stock of words and expressions, and by employing them almost daily in as varied relations as the ingenious teacher can devise, that a course in conversation can possibly thrive. This is the height of utilitarianism in the study ! Again, if* we choose to send boys of the high school to a business school, or rather, if we make a sort of business course of German instruction and teach pupils foreign corre- Writing spondence, I see no reason to suppose that the this cannot be done equally successfully under the same conditions as I have mentioned above. In order to learn how to write there is, no need to learn how to speak, or to learn the vocabulary of every- day life. The knowledge of the comparatively narrow technical nomenclature of trade, and the necessary business letter formulas, are not difficult of attainment. Time, and constant practice, will assure almost mechanical accuracy and precision. Here too, all the work must be confined strictly to the business field and phraseology. The ordinary German story will be a sealed book to the pupil. If we choose reading as the chief aim of modern language study in schools, and simply consider time and conditions of school life, there is no doubt that a pupil will realize a 20 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. seemingly greater return for his investment of energy, Reading *^^^ ^3^ accentuating the other elements of lan- the guage study, namely speaking and writing, for reading merely requires receptive knowledge of vocabulary, and very little productive knowledge even of grammar. A productive knowledge of vocabulary and grammar, of a suitable degree for a speaking command, is acquired slowly and with difficulty. It means constant repetition and practice within narrow confines, while a reading knowledge goes forward quickly and easily, running as it does along the lines of least resistance. Learning to speak is a complex process, compared with learning to read. The proper coordination between the physical and the psy- chical takes time and care. The words themselves must really be alive before there can be any question of using them in speaking, and the usages of grammar and syntax must have advanced from the passive to the active state. Every phase of the study must be quickened, and associations must be so strong as to have passed from the stage of recognition to the far higher one of habit. But aside from the fact that a pupil seems to get better returns for the time spent if reading is chosen as the chief aim of the study of German, there is another argument which •ar^ wr Tr tcuds to coufirm this view, namely, the cul- Reading tiie tural requirements of the present age. Some Chief Aim. £^^ centuries ago, as we have said, Latin occupied a foremost place in the education and life of the individual. It was necessary for the man who was to have any standing in educated society to acquire as perfect a mastery of Latin as possible, more perfect often than he AIM OP A COURSE. 21 possessed of his native tongue. The requirements of to-day have shifted. The man of liberal education is expected to have studied Latin in the secondary school, and perhaps during a part of his college course, where the most he gains in handling the language is a more or less ready reading ability, generally less ! In after life he loses even this power through neglect. It is taken for granted that he has once studied the subject, but no one questions the outcome of the years of study from the practical linguistic standpoint. We do expect, however, that the educated man shall have ac- quired through the study of Latin, some knowledge of Roman civilization and its influence in the development of the human race, its connection with, and influence upon, modern life. Are the social demands different in the case of German and French ? The most that we expect of a man of culture is, that he shall be able to read these languages and have some knowledge of their literatures^und the place of the nations in modern civilization. Anything beyond that (i, e., a speaking knowledge) is rather viewed in the light of an accomplishment. We expect, of course, that the teacher of modern languages should be able to speak the language he teaches ; it is an important part of his professional equipment. Whether he Speaking is an ^^^^^^ teach his pupils the accomplishment Accomplish- entirely depends, as has been said, upon the "^®^ * relative values we give to speaking and read- ing. The power to speak a language, I insist, is merely an accomplishment, to be compared in some respects to the ability to play the piano or sing. It is a very acceptable accomplishment, no doubt, which most people are proud to 22 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. possess! Tradition, however, has given a false educational value to the power of speaking a language. We are liable to make the mistake and rate a man or woman who can speak two or three languages as better educated than one who can only use his mother-tongue. It would not be diffi- cult, however, to prove that the practical linguist and the educated man are not always identical. There is another important consideration, in fact the weight- iest from the practical standpoint, that must be brought for- ward in favor of reading. No one would be so rash as to dinff presume that we could get anything like a forms thorough knowledge of German in school, a Basis. ^^ anywhere for that matter, in two, three, or possibly four years. We ought, then, to choose as a basis that element which will potentially give the pupils, in later life, the greatest pleasure and profit. Countries, no doubt, differ widely in their needs in the study of modern languages. There are countries, like Holland and Belgium, so geograph-^ ically situated that a speaking command might be as desirable, or even more so, than a reading one, in the schools. The chances of using and augmenting the oral pro'ficiency acquired there are exceedingly great. Here, in the United States, isolated as we are, practical conversational knowledge is of - very doubtful value for the rank and file, compared with a reading knowledge. Americans are great travellers, and swarm all over Europe every summer, and there are localities in the States themselves where the ability to carry on a con- versation in German would very often come in handy, but, after all, one might safely say that the large majority of our pupils will never have occasion to speak. Some few will AIM OF A COURSE. 23 doubtless talk now and then, but not often enough to com- pensate for the time and trouble taken to enable them to talk, and the saddest part of all, not often enough to pre- vent the accomplishment falling into decay through disuse. For nothing is more elusive than the power to control a language orally. It takes both a long time and much trouble to get facility in expressing oneself in the foreign idiom, and yet, everyone who has acquired this technique knows the result of too little practice. But even if we grant that it is not really forgotten, that it has merely become dull, and in a short time with the return of practice and op- portunity, it will shine as brightly as ever, is it not giving a false value to skill which can only now and then be used, at indefinite intervals dependent upon mere chance and cir- cumstance ? It is not always easy to find opportunities to associate with Germans, but, on the other hand, German books can easily be our companions as often as we like. Many pupils, no doubt, will drop the language entirely in after life, still the chances for keeping up a reading knowl- edge, as against a speaking one, are decidedly in favor of the former. There is no doubt that enough reading power can be gained in school to make reading a pleasure, so that, instead of falling into decay, the power acquired in school will improve from year to year. In spite of the objections we have raised to making an oral command of the language anything more than a sub- ordinate aim, compared with the general aim — reading, we must not forget that conversational exercises occupy an important place in modern language teaching, peda- gogically considered. Although not to be regarded as an 24 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. end in themselves, they are an indispensable means to an end. Experience teaches us that a just proportion of time spent on oral exercises gives a firmer grasp of Exerci"eT°^*^ grammar and vocabulary. Indirectly, too, we appease our consciences, because we are also lay- ing a good foundation for future chance growth along purely practical lines. We are doing the very best for the ninety- eight or ninety-nine who will never have occasion to use the language beyond reading, and at the same time, we are teaching the one or two, who will have occasion to use it later, to master the spoken language. The proper emphasis and correct teaching of conversation undoubtedly give the pupil a good start, and provide him with right tendencies, whether he continues to read the language after he leaves the secondary school, or develops the oral side. Further discussion of how we are to bring about the desired result belongs more directly to the chapter on Work in Speaking. With recent years there has been a growing emphasis upon exercises in conversation in modern language school work, notably in Germany. There the more pronounced Reformers have insisted that the spoken ••s^^e^iig^" language should receive a large share of atten- tion, and it would seem as if speaking the language were the chief practical aim sought, that all other lines of work were either subordinate to, or were intended to grow out of the pupil's oral command of the language. Instead of devoting the time of the class to reading, the first years of the course are spent, largely, in oral and written exercises calculated to give the pupils a firm grasp of the spoken language within a restricted field. The pupil AIM OF A COURSE. 26 learns to use orally, practically everything. There seems to be little reading for reading's sake, particularly in the lower classes. This is the impression gathered from a study of the " Reform '' literature, and confirmed by observation of the work in the schools. This is, however, not the place to discuss the question of the importance of " Sprechiibun- gen '' in German schools, a question by no means settled in Germany at the present time. We are face to face with a different problem here in the secondary schools of the United States, where the time granted for the study is four years at the most, and often much less. To build up a systematic vocabulary and knowledge of grammar chiefly through oral exercises, to put everything studied through the oral mill, would leave us no time for reading. As has been truly said : " It postpones our reading to a stage that is beyond our secondary period." ^ Before the discussion of the details of a modern language course, it is also worth while to consider, briefly at least, these three points : the teacher, the pupil, and the class, with regard to their equipment for the work. The foundation for modern language teaching lies in the fitness of the teacher for his work. He must be well equipped by knowledge of subject, and must possess the Th T ii ^igh^ kind of personality. An elaborately organized scheme of instruction is in itself powerless to secure good results, if the motive power (the teacher) is too weak in every way to carry it out, except in an inefficient and demoralizing manrel. With good teachers, on the other hand, who know *lieir subject ><'ReportofCk)m..»'p. 1401. 26 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. and are attractive to their pupils both by breadth of culture and sympathetic personality, the solution of the method's problem need no longer cause much anxiety. A combina- tion of both qualities is indispensable, and unfortunately, they are not always found in the same person. Particularly in modern language work, a kind of per- sonality that inspires enthusiasm is wanted. The teacher ought himself to be very impressionable to German lit- erature and German civilization, and possess Personality. i . /. i the power to arouse the interest of his pupils for what is best and truest. So much depends upon the teacher's alertness of mind and body. He must have sharp ears and sharp eyes, ^uick to hear and see mis- takes, to diagnose their causes, and to correct them. With- out being superficial, the modern language teacher should be versatile in his work in the class-room. Essential details of study, uninteresting perhaps in themselves, seem less formid- able under the guidance of a teacher who has the gift of arrang- ing the work in a way that inspires pleasure and confidence. The emphasis given of lute years .j the oral side of lan- guage as an important factor in the course, and the conse- quent higher demands on the teacher on the practical side, brings us face to face with the question for whether it would not be better to seek German. native-born Germans for teachers in secon- dary work. The American-born teacher most assuredly must not be found wanting in practical knowledge of his subject, although it is not demanded' of him that he should speak like a native German. Granted, however, that he has an accurate knowledge of the spoken language within a AIM OF A COURSE. 27 limited range, naturally in addition to the other requisites stated below, the American teacher has many important advantages in his favor. Germany gave up the system of having " maitres des langues " over a generation ago. One of the complaints made against the native Frenchman was on the score of discipline, and in England we constantly hear criticisms of similar nature — the foreigners cannot control the boys. Certainly the inability to keep order, and as the natural outcome, to secure good work, are radical de- fects in any teacher. If we try to analyze from the stand- point of the pupils, why the foreigner often has trouble with a class, we shall find certain influences at work. In the first place,' tliprp js jln|>1ring ^. n ^ti |^r^.1 hon^ of syyTipnthy between the foreign-born teacher and the pupils. He is not one of them, he has been brought up differently, he has different manners of speech, of dress, of doing things, a different temperament. All these matters may be extremely slight, perhaps hardly noticeable to the adult, but they are magnified in the mind of the American boy or girl to the teacher's disadvantage. In the second place Jthere is the foreigner's more or less imperfect knowledge of English, or at least imperfect accent. This keeps him a foreigner in the eyes of the class. But apart from the purely personal side of the question, which no doubt can easily be exaggerated, the inability to use the English language as his mother- tongue serves to weaken his work in teaching, especially in explanations and in correcting translation, and the latter point, after all, plays a very important r6le in modern lan- guage instruction in the United States. A German-born teacher labors under a third/ disadvantage. In teaching his 28 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. mother-tongue he is likely to fail in getting the pupils' point of view as to its difficulties. The American who has learned the language himself, with a knowledge of the English lan- guage as a starting point, can better realize and better meet the difficulties which the German language presents to the pupils. In learning German his mind has worked along similar lines to those on which the pupils are now working, and accordingly he appreciates more accurately the troubles the boys and girls have with the study. It is difficult enough for the teacher who has learnt the language after years of study, to work down at the pupils' level ; how much more for a German who never, at any time in his life, has gone through the same process of learning the language he is now called upon to teach. It is needless to say that there must be many foreigners who have wholly overcome these disadvantages, to which I have alluded, or who have, in spite of them, proved themselves most excellent teachers. We maintain, however, that the principle of American-born teachers, with American ideals, for America, is the sound one, as has been proved in German-born teachers for Germany. On the other hand, as has been stated, the American- born teacher " cannot affi^rd to be vulnerable in so vital a point as the practical command of the Ian- Americans ^ /^ for guage in which he has undertaken to give German. instruction.'' ^ How the American modern language teacher is to obtain the requisite practice is a question which cannot be dealt with here at length. It seems hardly to be expected that colleges will give the kind of training necessary. The large * ** Report of Com./' p. 1404. AIM OF A COURSE. 29 majority of college courses are, and will be perhaps for a long ^j^^^ time to come preeminently reading courses, couege The reasons for this are not far to seek. Preparation. ^^ present many students begin the study of either French or German in college. It is required work, often dropped at the end of a year. The classes are large, time is short, and the pupils are, as a rule, too old to do easily the kind of work demanded for even the rudiments of an oral command of the language. Moreover, the students come from all parts of the country and have not been uni- formly trained in their linguistic work. It is obviously impossible in the second year to build up a speaking knowl- edge upon such a foundation, even if deemed important. It seems, however, that something ought to be done by way of enabling pupils who come to college well prepared in reading, and with some facility in speaking, to go on with their work in much the same way. There ought not to be a break in method between the high school and the college. If pupils had a course, such as we propose to advocate in this book, for four years in high school, and could then re- ceive another four years' training along similar lines in col- lege, the chances of finding suitable material ready for special work in methods of teaching modern languages would be far greater than at present. Here again lack of uniformity in preparation of students presenting German for entrance, no doubt prescribes to a great extent the kind of work attempted in college classes. There is also unfortunately, a certain tradition that college courses should follow the lines laid down in the teaching of the classics, i. e., they are almost entirely reading courses, for the study of the literature. 30 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. Opportunities for increasing the oral command of the lan- guage are offered in special courses, to be sure, and in some other ways not necessary to specify here, but the results of these special courses are weakened materially by the fact that the pupils are ill prepared to profit by them, either because of the insufficient training that they brought with them from the secondary school, or from the lack of op- portunity, in a regular literary college course, to do work of a colloquial nature, i The present outlook of obtaining college graduates with a suitable practical command of the language is not very hopeful, unless they have enjoyed other outside advantages, such as residence abroad, foreign parentage, or opportunity of associating with foreigners. The work done in the " Lehrerinnenseminare " in Ger- many is suggestive. Before entering, the girls have, through years of study in the " Hohere Madchenschulen," acquired an excellent foundation in reading, writing and se^SnlrT^^" speaking the foreign tongue. The three years spent in the " Seminar " build upon this knowl- edge, but make it more accurate, and put it upon a more scientific basis. The method, in other respects, remains the same, i, e., in addition to appropriate work in reading, gram- mar, etc., the power to speak also receives its due share of attention as an organized part of the course. At the end of the time, the equipment of the young " Lehrerin,'' as far as ability to speak is concerned, is indeed astonishing. She certainly puts the German university student, who intends teaching modern languages, to shame. In the United States there are two ways open. There could be special courses for intending teachers, either given AIM OF A COURSE. 31 by colleges or better by professional schools for the train- s eciai Train- ^°S of teachers. I mean subject matter courses, inginthe one important object of which is to further Unite sta es. ^^^q speaking knowledge of the prospective teachers. In other words, if it is not feasible to include oral exercises in the regular literary courses, special parallel courses running through the whole four years ought to find a legitimate place in college announcements ; courses where, in every lesson, the opportunity is given to use the foreign tongue in speaking, along the same lines as will be advo- cated in this book. It might be even possible to have special sections which shall contain graded students who have already gained some facility in handling the spoken language and who wish to increase it. If it can be clearly shown that work in speaking is a means of better under- standing the language and literature in high school, I see nothing derogatory in employing the same method in col- lege classes, if not in the regular courses, then in special ones. I do not mean to say that even a high school course in which speaking received due recognition, plus four years along the same general lines in college, will be sufficient preparation for teaching. The student must take every advantage he can of using the language, either in other more purely conversational courses, or outside college. Still eight years, or even six years, of training will give the student a good start, and equip him better to do the more technical work in teaching, such as given at Teachers Col- lege, Columbia University. In spite of the sacrifice it often means to spend six months or a year in Germany, no teacher can be said to be well 32 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. equippei'' ^r the work of teaching German who has not don», so. It is not by what one gains in AbroaT*'* One's practical command of the language that one alone is benefited ; we learn also about the people first band. The time spent among the people them- selves must assuredly have a most stimulating effect on our knowledge of German, and this new light that we have received will certainly be reflected to the benefit of our pupils. In passing, a word about the various summer courses given at the German Universities of Marburg, Jena, and Greifswald. In addition to the lectures, sometimes of excel- lent value, one has abundant opportunity to Summer i-lj Courses speak German by living in an educated fam- in Germany. -j^^ /jij^^ greatest good that I got personally, however, was from associating with teachers from a large number of different countries — from Holland, Sweden, Nor- way, France, England, Scotland, Russia, as well as from other parts of America and Germany. They did not always speak German with the accuracy or fluency to be desired, still the exchange of ideas on teaching was most valuable. A teacher should certainly not be wanting in a practical command of the language, augmented, if possible, by resi- dence abroad, and it goes without saying he should be a man of broad, liberal culture and natural refine- Further ment. These qualifications by no means ex- haust the list of fundamental requirements. He should have received considerable linguistic training in other languages, indeed Latin and Greek and a good knowledge of French are very important. AIM OF A COURSE. 33 With regard to his own special field, he should thoroughly have studied the history of the development of the German language, its relation to other members of the Indo-Germanic group, and have a reading acquaintance with T^Udng^*^ some of the more important branches. He should possess a knowledge of the literature such as comes from a first-hand study of the important works in the different periods, from Gothic, downwards through the centuries. He should have read widely, and studied carefully, the more modern periods. A knowledge of phonetics is also essential, both as an aid to his philological studies and as a preparation for actual teaching. Every teacher should not only know what constitutes a good pronunciation, but also how the various speech-sounds are produced. For further discussion see chapter on Pronunciation, p. 39. Leaving purely linguistic studies, the teacher ought to have a good knowledge of German history, and have read other books with the idea of gaining a clear insight into German civilization. Especially the modern History development of Germany into a great empire should receive a great share of attention. Eesidence abroad, and trips now and then, with the help of books, will serve to give and keep alive such knowledge of German characteristics and customs. From the stand- point of method the teacher surely ought to have, in addition to a general knowledge of pedagogy, a special knowledge of methods of teaching languages from the historical standpoint, and an interest in general methodological discussion. As for the pupil, his previous training in English, as a factor in the study of German, I also wish to suggest in this 4 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. connection. In the days of the " old humanism/' the boy began Latin after he had acquired a very rudi- The^oid mentary vocabulary and knowledge of his Humanism." mother-tongue. Teachers did not take this knowledge of the mother-tongue into consideration ; on the contrary, Latin became of first importance from the outset, and the vernacular was kept in the background as something unworthy of study. To-day, with other educational ideals, foreign language study has lost its prestige, and the study , of the mother-tongue has been gradually coming into its right- ful inheritance. But it should play the most important part in the mental development of the child, not only in principle, but in fact. The foreign language should not be taken up until the child has obtained a considerable degree of facility in thought and expression. It is not my inten- tion here, however, to fix when such supplementary studies as Latin, French, and German should be begun. As a mat- ter of fact, they are usually begun late enough in this coun- try, to presuppose the necessary grounding in English upon which modern language teachers can safely build. Whatever method the teacher may use, he cannot expect to be successful if the pupil has never been taught his own language properly. It is like building the second story to „ „ a house before the framework of the first is Pupil's ^ Training sufficiently finished. Still it is no uncommon in EngiisH. con^dition to find a large number of pupils who have no clear conception of English grammar ; even pupils of fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen are set to learn a foreign language, and yet have the most confused, worthless ideas of the ordinary technical expressions, such as subject, object, AIM OF A COURSE. 35 noun, verb, etc. The high school teacher of foreign lan- guages, instead of being able to count upon an elementary knowledge of grammar common to all languages studied in school, finds that his time must be spent in doing what should have been done, and could have been better done, years ago in the elementary school. It seems, at times, as if the teachers themselves lack suffi- cient linguistic training to teach the type of formal grammat- ical work necessary for sound language study, whether for Latin, German, or English. I do not mean to imply that the teachers should go back to the methods of grammar study in vogue a few years ago, and still to be met with in some schools. The mere parrot-like memorizing of rules, so taught that they can mean nothing concrete to the pupils, is not what is needed. We do not believe in that kind of instruction for a foreign language ; it would be equally, if not more, deadening in the English classes. Still any lan- guage study, either French, German, or English, which neg- lects the formal side of the work, can never be anything but superficial in its results, and will stunt the child mind for future sound linguistic study. The maturer student who takes up the study of philology finds himself hampered because of his insufficient training in the mother-tongue. Grammar is dull, the children do not like it, we hear said. I do not believe this will be true if the teacher knows the subject and how to teach it. The modern language teacher is, after all, very humble in his demands, and does not ask too much of boys and girls of fourteen and fifteen. The requirements are well summarized by Professor Baker, in " The Teaching of English in the Elementary School,'' pp. 36 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. 150^ ; "The body of grammatical facts appropriate to the elementary school is rather limited. It might be summed up about as follows : " I. A knowledge of the sentence sufficient to analyze and parse it down to its single words, except, of course, in the case of phrases that are so idiomatic that they render anal- ysis absurd. " II. An understanding of case and a knowledge of case relationships including not only the nominative, genitive, and objective (or accusative), but also the dative and the vocative. "III. An acquaintance with the verb in its varied aspects of voice, mood, and tense ; transitive and intransitive parti- ciples and their uses. " lY. A knowledge of all the common inflections as they appear in nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. " V. The various kinds of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and conjunctions. " YI. The simple rules of syntax, particularly those whose violation is common in oral speech. "YII. The power to distinguish between relationships where the form may be the same but the meaning twofold, as in phrases like ^ the love of God.' " YIII. A brief general history of the language as to its origin ; some of the historical facts that throw light on pres- ent forms, like the genitive and dative cases, the verb phrases, etc." One of the greatest hindrances to good work, particularly in the larger cities of Germany and of our own country, is I **The Teaching of English," Carpenter, Baker and Scott, New York. AIM OF A COUESE. 37 the size of the classes. Too large classes make good results impossible, even in the hands of a ffood teacher. The Class. ^ ^ ; . , . ° in my estimation no subject suners so much from crowded classes as language work, for the result of no other subject depends so much upon the oral practice of the pupil. In order to learn a language, particu- larly a living language, the teacher must have the opportunity to call upon each individual pupil often. This oral work in the language is very necessary even when reading is made the practical goal of instruction, and it is, of course, fundamental when speaking is the chief end. It is only when abundant opportunities are in ciass^ offered to each individual pupil that there can be any question of his acquiring any speaking knowledge worthy of the name. We know that the accom- plishment of speaking a foreign language has a physical as well as a psychical side. To speak well presupposes a co- ordination of both forces, physical and psychical, but before the harmonious working together can be brought about, one needs not only a long period of study, but during this time, intensive daily practice. Even if we content ourselves with just teaching enough speaking to satisfy our demands, i, 6., of teaching the class io read, each pupil, especially in the lower classes, must receive a great deal of individual atten- tion. How is this posssible in classes of forty or forty-five ? It is certainly wonderful what some teachers can accomplish under such, for our subject, abnormal conditions. It is kill- ing work for the teacher, however, and sooner or later, he either breaks down under the excessive strain, or he adopts a less tiring method of teaching. Thus too large classes 38 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. have a demoralizing effect on the teacher who is capable of doing, and under less trying conditions would be willing to do, more for his pupils. To suggest a remedy against over-crowding, except the obvious one of increasing the staff of teachers, is not an easy matter. It is especially in the earlier stages of instruction that relief is most needed. After the pupils Remedy Can have gained a knowledge of pronunciation, and We Suggest? ^^ elementary vocabulary, etc., aud, above all, a right attitude towards the new language, the effect is not so injurious as in the first year, say, of language study. In schools where there is a tendency to have large classes, it would seem almost advisable to halve the divisions for modern language work, even at the expense of the pupils having fewer hours a week. CHAPTER III. PRONUNCIATION. The Reform movement in Germany has done an important service to modern language instruction through the emphasis it has laid on pronunciation. Under the old regime before the days of the new movement, there was generally great neglect of this important element of the course. It was partly due to the fact that the teachers themselves possessed a faulty pronunciation, and thus did not realize the great differences existing in it, and partly because a good pronun- ciation was not considered important enough to deserve the time it would take to obtain in a course almost entirely made up of translation and grammatical study. With the radical shifting of the emphasis to speaking, to the spoken word as the basis of modern language work, a correspondingly great change in the value set upon correct pronunciation was an inevitable consequence. Fortunately the time was auspicious for placing pronuncia- tion in school work on a high plane, because of the progress made in the scientific stiidy of phonetics. The results of such writers as Bell,. Ellis, and Sweet, in Eng- Phonettcs land, of Sievers, Trautmann, Techmer, Victor, and others, in Germany, and of Passy, and others, in France, were utilized for school purposes. The greatest influence, however, was on the teachers themselves. They saw that their mistakes would be passed on to the 89 40 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. pupils; that in order to expect a tolerable pronunciation from the pupils, they must themselves, by earnest study of phonetics and practice, try to correct defects in their own ; that each individual must overcome by systematic training, the influences of dialect on the pronunciation of the foreign language. They realized that their study of phonetics should show practical results in the school-room, that the teacher should not only be a model as regards pronunciation, but should also be in a position to explain accurately how sounds differing from the mother-tongue should be made. He should possess a working knowledge of phonetics, and not limit his study to securing a good pronunciation himself and the knowledge of how to keep that good pronunciation, once acquired. The high standard set up by the Reformers in this im- portant part of modern language work is one which American teachers ought also to make their own. A good pronuncia- tion on the part of teacher and pupil is of fundamental import- _^ ance. It is worth all the time and trouble Importance of a Good taken to obtain it. Whether we make a Pronunciation, gp^^king knowledge of paramount importance, or a reading knowledge (as I advocate for America), it is neces- sary that the pupils should learn to pronounce, and later to read, accurately and fluently. For successful work the pupil must be taught from the very first to hear, see, and pronounce correctly. Each factor is important. The pupil who is never taught by the teacher to pronounce a word twice alike, who stumbles repeatedly, who is never sure from the first day to the last day of the course, is greatly handi- capped for any future growth along the lines of a practical PRONUNCIATION. 41 command of the language. And although in school work our main object is to teach a reading knowledge, because we cannot do everything and that seems to be the most important, still the teacher has no right to stunt the pupil's growth along the lines of a speaking knowledge. This is certainly done if pronunciation is neglected at any time during the secondary school course. Even if we leave out future pos- sibilities of using the language, the course suffers. To form right habits of pronunciation is as essential as to teach right habits in any discipline. We strive to teach grammar cor- rectly, with equal justice we must, fOr the pupiFs sake, teach pronunciation as correctly as lies in our power. As I have already intimated, we must begin with our- selves, examine our own defects in pronuncia- as a nTdei^^ *^^°' ^^^ ^^ study and practice seek to remedy them, so that we can act as a good model for our pupils to copy. It does not follow as a matter of course that the pupils will pronounce well simply because the teacher does so, but on the other hand, a teacher with a faulty pronunciation cannot hope to teach a better pronuncia- tion than he himself possesses. For after all is said and done, imitation is the greatest force in teaching a good pro- nunciation. A good model has a strong tendency towards securing good results, and vice versa. It is by no means sufficient for the teacher to have learnt the language in Germany. Even then he may have a good pronunciation or a bad one. As it is largely gained by imi- tation, perhaps unconscious, of the people with study Abroad. i , , . r^ r whom he has come m contact, it is likely to be filled with dialectic peculiarities. The student who has 42 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. learned the language in Berlin, will not speak with the same accent as the student who has spent his time in Munich, for example. Above all he will find, if he examines his pro- nunciation, that it is full of little discrepancies, that he is not consistent in his pronunciation. For example, he pronounces the final " g " in various ways, but there is a lack of system in it. If he has studied in a number of places, all the more he needs to get some standard which he can safely follow. The teacher of German birth labors under similar disad- vantages, indeed is more heavily handicapped as a rule. He usually speaks the dialect of his native province, and thus needs to know how far his speech differs from ''^f^o^^^"^^^ what we may call a standard of pronunciation for teaching in American schools. The Ger- man nation has long had a literary language, but it is a written one, not a spoken. The inhabitants of the different territorial divisions of the German Empire learn to read a common language, but each pronounces it in the manner peculiar to his own locality. In spite of the predominance of Prussia, and the importance that Berlin has assumed as its capital, its influence on pronunciation is not to be compared with that which Paris has exercised in France, and London in England. With the spread of education and modern inter- course, there is of course a strong tendency, especially among the higher classes in the larger towns, towards greater unifor- mity, still even to-day there is considerable divergence be- tween the pronunciation of Northern, Middle, and Southern Germany — a divergence which will long continue to exist. We shall look in vain for any one place where standard German is spoken, for every province has its provincialisms. PRONUNCIATION. 43 Even the pronunciation in Hanover, so long in vogue in England, is in many respects not worthy of German imitation. On the whole, however, the most Pronunciation, a correct" German, that is the pronunciation which follows the orthography most closely, is spoken in North Germany. One reason for this is that the native dialect is so very different from the High German of the literary language. In a way, the literary language is a for- eign language to the inhabitants of North Germany, it is a book language to them, and so has received more careful study than elsewhere. The influence of Prussia too, politi- cal and literary, as the largest state in the Empire, has also tended to bring the language of North Germany into good repute. With some exceptions, this is the language adopted by the German stage, the present standard pronunciation as far as there can be any standard. " A common pronuncia- tion for the stage is absolutely necessary !" as BreuP says, "a play like ^Iphigenie^ would be completely spoilt if Orestes were to speak Swabian, Pylades — Westphalian, Iphigenia — Saxon, and King Thoas — East Prussian." For a long time the theatre has accordingly aimed at one pronunciation, free from dialect, for every stage in Germany, the so-called " Buhnendeutsch." The standard was at first set by men who had little or no schooling in German phonetics, and consequently not always relia- ble knowledge. Latterly, howev£ry4ihere Ms been a movement, notably on the part of some University Professors, to put this normalized pronunciation on a firm basis. In April, 1898, a Commission met in Berlin of rep- * "The Teaching of Modem Foreign Languages," London, 1899. 44 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. resentatives of the Biihnenverein, Graf von Hochberg of Berlin, Freiherr von Ledebur of Schwerin, and Dr. Eduard Tempeltey of Koburg ; University representatives, Professor Sievers of Leipzig, Professor Luick of Graz, and Professor Siebs of Greifswald. Professor Seemiiller of Innsbruck, and Professor Yietor of Marburg, were unable to attend, and sent suggestions by letter. The conference, by the pres- ence of such specialists in phonetics and university profes- sors, became of far greater significance, especially as the proposition for holding the conference originated in the scientific side of the Commission, namely Professor Siebs. An attempt was made as far as practicable to take the existing stage pronunciation as a basis, and to adjust, by way of compromise, differences that still continue to exist among the actors themselves in the theatres of Germany. The method in which the Commission went to work is, in a few words, as follows : A fundamental principle of the present stage usage, as formulated by Professor Sievers is : " Unsere Biihnenaus- sprache ist darauf erbaut, dass hochdeutsche Sprachformen (wie sie unsere auf ostmitteldeutsche Grund- CommiMion ^^^^ beruhende Schriftsprache zeigt) ausge- sprochen werden mit den einfachen nieder- deutschen Lautwerten ; aber keine Einmischung von Dialektformen." Wherever this principle was not sufficient the Commission divided Germany, geographically and lin- guistically, into three great groups. Tow, middle, and high German. In a disputed point generally, where two out of the three groups preferred a certain pronunciation, that pro- nunciation was accepted as the "norm." An important PRONUNCIATION. 45 work of the Commission consisted also in fixing the pronun- ciation of foreign words, etc. The result of the discussion is incorporated in the larger edition of the "Deutsche Buhnenaussprache," and the smaller stage edition, '^ Grund- ziige der Biihnenaussprache." ^ I can hardly do more here than draw attention to this earnest attempt to fix the pronunciation of the stage, and suggest books on the subject for all teachers of German in America, in connection with other books on phonetics. The various books by Victor will be found very helpful for American teachers in obtaining an insight into this most per- plexing question. " Die Aussprache des Schriftdeutschen '' ^ contains a valuable word list with the correct pronuncia- tion given in the transcription of the Associa- te Subject *^^^ Phon^tique Internationale. At the end of the little book there are also a number of specimens of prose and verse, printed in both the ordinary orthography and in the transcribed form. For those who do not wish to read the larger work, Victor's " Elemente der Phonetik des Deutschen, Englischen, und Franzosischen " ^ will find the same book condensed in the "Kleine Pho- netik.'' ^ A translation and adaptation of the first edition is W. Rippmann's " Elements of Phonetics." ^ A very valu- able book has also appeared in this country in Hempl's *" Deutsche Biihnenaussprache," 2te Aufl., 1901. "Grundziige der Biihnenaussprache," 1900. Ahn, Berlin, Koln, Leipzig. * "Die Aussprache des Schriftdeutschen," 5th ed., Leipzig, 1901. ^ " Elemente der Phonetik des Deutschen, Englischen, und Franzosi- schen," Vietor, 5th ed., Leipzig, 1904. * ''Kleine Phonetik," Vietor, 3d ed., Leipzig, 1903. *** Elements of Phonetics," Rippmaun, London, 1899, 46 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. " German Orthography and Phonology." ^ In the part of this book dealing with pronunciation, each letter of the alpha- bet is discussed. Sooner or later, every teacher ought to study Sievers' " Grundzuge der Phonetik." ^ Primarily written for the use of the philologist, it will lay the basis for a sound knowledge of the subject of phonetics. The book is most carefully constructed so that the new and strange in the sub- ject gradually unfolds itself to the reader. Vietor's " Deut- sches Lesebuch in Lautschrift," ^ affords abundant material for practice. The ordinary text and the transcribed face each other for convenience in comparing. A popular book writ- ten for the use of actors and students, containing a host of exercises, will be found in Oberlander's "Uebungen zum Erlemen einer dialektfreien Aussprache." * The exercises are largely in the form of detached sentences, in which a particular sound is brought out as often as possible. Other books on the subject of pronunciation will be found in the General Bibliography. A certain section among the Reformers in Germany have gone one step further in their attempts to secure a true pro- nunciation of the foreign language, namely, by introducing phonetic or transcribed texts in the school. The Phonetic system generally followed is the one quoted above, that of the Association Phon^tique Internationale. Imitation of the teacher alone, they say, is 1 "German Orthography and Phonology," Hempl, Boston, 1897. 2 "Grundzuge der Phonetik," Sievers, 5th ed., Leipzig, 1901. 3 "Deutsches Lesebuch in Lautsehrift," Vietor, Leipzig, I. Teil, 1899, IL Teil, 1902. *"Uebungen zum Erlemen einer dialektfreien Aussprache," Ober- lander, Munchen, 1901. PRONUNCIATION. 47 not sufficient to insure the pupils' learning the correct sounds. They need some training in elementary phonetics, and the best way to accomplish this is by the introduction of phonetic texts in the place of ordinary texts at the beginning of the course. In this phonetic spelling, of course, one symbol always represents one and the same sound. Hung up on the school-room wall is a so-called " Lauttafel," ^ in three colors, voiceless sounds — black, voiced — red, and nasal — green. With the aid of the teacher the class learns the value of the various symbols, and at any mistake made, the Lautschritt.'' Lippenlaute. Zahnlaute. Vorder- Hinter- Gaumenlaute. Kehllaute. 6^ pb td ^9 ? ^1 »m *n *v 1 "So 1 » 11 r R « fv ^zfz 5J ^g h Ob 1 () () () e(0) (o) e((«)^ (D) a t * Nasal ( ) = Lippeninindung. Lange = :(z. B. a:). Unbetont verkiirzte Lange= * (z. B. a*). Bis zur Unsilbigkeit verkiirztes i:, \' = \. Ton (Nachdruck) ='' (z. B/a:). Nasalierung = "(z. B. a:). Diphthonge : ai — au — oy — ui. * "Deutsche, englische, und franzosische Lauttafel," System Vietor, Marburg. «Cf. Victor's ** Deutsches Lesebuch in Lautschrift," I. Teil, p. 3. 48 THE TEACHING OF GEEMAN. "Lauttafel" can easily be referred to and the isolated sound practised. It is claimed that, as the language, at first, is only seen by the pupils in the phonetic garb, the danger of acquiring a false pronunciation is considerably less than if the ordinary text, with its misleading spelling, were used at the beginning. The pupil thus trained takes less time to learn a good pronunciation. Moreover, as he is not led astray by the historic spelling, he begins at once to form a strong habit of accuracy and sureness in giving the new sounds. The phonetic texts also act as a guide in the home work, and are the best substitute for the teacher. The pupil has the key to the correct reading, and in the repetition of the day's work can better check any false pronunciation than under the old way, which depended upon the pupil's memory of how the teacher pronounced the various words, etc. The method employed and the length of time that elapses before the regular orthography is introduced in the class, varies widely with different teachers, from simply using the symbol's to illustrate on the board the proper of Regular pronunciation of a word, to the exclusive use Texts. ^£ phonetic texts as sketched above, until the class has mastered the new pronunciation sufficiently to war- rant the change. Some urge half a year's, others one, and still others one and a half year's use as necessary. To get a complete idea of how phonetics and phonetic texts can be utilized, I refer the reader to " Franzosische Aussprache und Sprachfertigkeit." ^ According to Miinch, in his " Franzosi- scher Unterricht " ^ the majority of teachers still seem to be 1 ** Franzosische Aussprache und Sprachfertigkeit/' Quiehl, Marburg, 1899. 2 "Franzosischer Unterricht," Munch, 2d ed., Miinchen, 1902, p. 32. PRONUNCIATION. 49 opposed to the regular use of transcription alone, for any con- siderable length of time: The chief objections being that " man befarchtet entweder orthographische Unsicherheit oder entbehrliche Mehrbelastung der Schiiler." One might enlarge upon these objections, and add others from the standpoint of teachers in Germany, but I hardly think it is important here. The principal reason against any extended use of the " Laut- schrift '' for teaching German in the United States is that it is not really needed. We are far away from the various dialects of Germany, and in school we teach a normalized pronuncia- tion. Also, speaking unscientifically, German orthography is a phonetic orthography compared with English. Imitation of the teacher, though not alone sufficient to ensure a proper pronunciation, is the most important means, and whenever imitation fails to bring about the desired result, practical explanation of how the troublesome sounds are made must come to its aid. A teacher will undoubtedly, by his study of phonetics, acquire a knowledge of the usual systems of phonetic transcriptions, and benefit his pronunciation thereby. But any extended use of phonetic texts in elementary work in the study of German in America is uncalled for. I would not imply, however, that I do not attach great importance to the accurate teaching of pronunciation, or that I think that even a satisfactory pronunciation of German is easily ac- quired. It requires, on the contrary, great care and patience from the first to the last day of the course. The foundation must be well laid in the first year, in fact the first few weeks of the first year are critical ; and what is learned then must be kept up to the mark, improved wherever pos- sible, through untiring vigilance on the part of the teacher, 5 60 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. if poorer work is not to be found in the upper than in the lower classes. Before taking up the actual class procedure, a few words on general points of difference between the two languages, and the chief difficulties that are usually met with in teach- ing German pronunciation. The pupil learns a German intonation, with proper word \ and sentence stress, very largely by imitation. How a teacher * is to acquire a proper intonation is a difficult question to answer. Many can learn through hearinar Intonation. ^ . ."^ ^ n ^ . ^ German, and by study of the subject, a suffi- ciently accurate pronunciation, and yet fail to get the more subtle qualities of intonation. Even an approximate acqui- sition of the natural rise and fall of the voice, and the emphasis which is peculiar to a foreign language, cannot be attained by all. fc^bove all, one must have a musical ear, be quick at imitation, good at mimicry, if one may use such a wordy Those who have opportunities of hearing and speaking German with Germans will unconsciously, and wherever possible consciously, strive to catch the proper in- tonation. How about those who lack such advantages? UPhonetic texts give little beyond accent marks before words receiving stress, and bars between the different stress groups : '/drai/'kindar/zoltan na:x dar '/uila/geian ; //. Or, as in Passy's book, " Le Fran9ais parl6,'' ^ the rising, falling, or level intonation are shown by such lines as / \ — .^ Accents he indicates by larger spaces between the words. A specially stressed syllable is followed by an acute accent after the 1 "Le Franpais parl^," Passy, Heilbronn, 1897. *Cf. ** German Orthography and Phonology," Hempl, Boston, 1897, p. 169. PRONUNCIATION. 51 syllable in question. These few marks are suggestive, no doubt, when once a person has acquired some knowledge of stress and intonation, etc., otherwise they will be found very in- adequate. On the other hand, the results of M. P Abb^ Rous- selot's experiments in the same field are far too elaborate to aid the struggling teacher.^ In the " Modern Language Quar- terly " 2 the use of the phonograph for this purpose has been suggested, which I also recommend. Equipped with a good pronunciation, considerable help in intonation can be expected from the use of such mechanical means. It is well worth a trial, and it ought not to be difficult to make the experiment in the United States where machines are in such general use. Compared with German, English sounds are dull and muffled. This is due principally to the difference in the position and form of the lips and tongue in speaking. In English the mouth is more closed, the lips more and Tongue inactive, than in German, and the tongue when at i rest is flat and lies farther back from the teeth, and is more sluggish in its action. The result is that the vowels are less clear and distinct from one another, and often become diphthongs, while the consonants seem less sharp and crisp. In teaching vowel sounds which correspond, in the first element at least, to those in German, the teacher will have trouble in getting the pupil to hold the same vowel sound 1^ throughout. In English, for example, we pro- sounds nounce the " o " in " rose " as a diphthong : o-u, rouz, or ro"z, while, in German, the " o,'' when correctly pronounced, is a simple vowel, "e," is ^See also ** Elementary Experimental Phonetics," Scripture, New York, 1902. « ''Modern Language Quarterly," December, 1902, Vol. V., no. 3, p. 179.. 52 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. also a pure vowel, not as English ^' a '^ in they, pay. In the vowel " u," one must guard against the sound of " u " in "use," the phonetic spelling of which is "juws" (Sweet), or the British-English pronunciation of " new," " tune," etc. Pupils are also inclined to give a more or less obscure vowel sound in unaccented syllables where the German requires the pure sound, e. ^., "niemand" should be pronounced "ni:mant" and not "niimant," "kanoina" and not "k9no:n8," *EAKING. 87 material in the class, the teacher alone using the book as a guide. There was life in the lesson, the language was simpler and more natural, and still the essential points of the book were brought out. Another book exceedingly helpful to the teacher for sup- plementary material for conversation, is in itself a book of dialogues originally written for the study of French, but containing a carefully edited German transla- A Book of ^-^jj^ rpj^g 1^^^]^ jg u Franzosische Sprechubun- Dialogues. gen," by Storm.^ The dialogues are ar- ranged to illustrate various chapters of French grammar, and the teacher will, after studying it, see many ways in which he can utilize parts of the book for class instruction. It is no*- a book for the class to have, however, its arrange- ment is not suitable for that. But some of the dialogues can be given to the class, and made use of for conversation and for composition, as I have described, p. 157. Other books which may be used for both conversation and composition are the German " Echo " books, published by Giegler, Leipzig. For other books see chapter on Eeading, p. 162. The foundation of all work in speaking is imitation of something with which the class is familiar. In the earlier stages of the study, while the teacher is laying the founda- tion for a good pronunciation, the answers of ofoJaiWork^^ the pupils \^ill hardly be anything more than a repetition in the appropriate form of the teacher's question. In other words, the teacher must see that the questions he forms on a given text not only imply the answer, but practically include the words of the » "Franzosische Sprechiibungen," Storm, Bielefeld, 2d ed., 1893. 88 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. answer. This may seem mere child's play to the outsider ; to the pupils, however, even the simple repetition of the words of the teacher in the answer form offers difficulties. Confusion arises from the mere &ct of having a question asked them in a strange language. The new words and forms become confused when they attempt to reply, and added to this are the difficulties that the still uncertain pro- nunciation presents. It takes time to get the class in the right attitude of mind to answer promptly in the, as yet, strange language, not to lose their heads when they hear a question asked. It takes time to bring about the harmonious working together of the physical and the psychological factors necessary in speaking, to overcome natural shyness at trying to say something in a language which they are only begin- ning. It is a very good plan at first to require the pupils to repeat the question verbatim before attempting the answer. Even at the outset considerable variety in the form of questions is quite possible, in fact very essential for sound progress. As the majority of pupils have very little prac- tical knowledge of the structure of the sen- How to Form iqj^qq go essential as a foundation for asking or Questions. ' ^ *^^ answering questions on a given text, practice is necessary. Walter, in his book " Der franzosische Klas- senunterricht," ^ p. 18, gives illustrations of how to form questions to emphasize in the answers the various parts of the sentence, such as subject, object, predicate, adverbial modi- fier, etc. Take, for example, the French sentence he gives : Un paysan avail remarquS que heauccmp de personnes portent des lunettes en lisant, * "Der franzosische Klassenunterricht," Walter, Marburg, 1895. WORK IN SPEAKING. 89 So zerlegt man zunachst den Nebensatz beaucoup . . . en lisant in die folgenden Fragen : 1. Subjekt : Qui porte des lunettes f 2. Pradikat : Que ford beaucoup de personnes f 3. Objekt : Que portent beaucoup de personnes f 4. Adverb. Bestimmung: Quand portent-elles des lunettes f Auf die ersten drei Fragen wiederholt der Schiiler den Satz : Beaucoup de personnes portent des lunettes oder dies portent des lunettes, auf die vierte fiigt er diesem Satze noch en lisant hinzu. Alsdann verbindet man den Hauptsatz mit dem Nebensatz durch die Frage : 1. Subjekt : Qui avait remarqu^ que beaucoup de personnes p(yrtent des lunettes en lisant f 2. Pradikat: Qu'est-ce que le paysan avait fait f 3. Objekt : Qu^avait-il remarqu^ f Auf jede der drei Fragen wird der Satz wiederholt : Tin paysan (il ) avait remarqui que beaucoup de personnes portent des lunettes en lisant. Some such plan as the above is the very best way to help i the pupils themselves to prepare the reading for question and ; answer. It can also readily be seen that such a preparation will quickly enable the pupils to ask questions, as well as answer them, in class. This exercise of asking each other questions ought to be encouraged, especially on selections that have been carefully worked over beforehand by the teacher, and are well mastered. The pupils take the recita- 1 tion into their own hands for a time, the teacher simply 1 guiding and correcting. He can go round the class letting each pupil answer and ask a question in turn, or appoint one pupil to ask questions for a time^ and select one to 90 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. answer after each question has been put. This guards against simple memorizing of the text with nothing more. In the early stages of instruction it is a good rule to which to adhere, that the pupils should answer in complete sen- tences, and not be content with simple " yes " and " no." , ^ ^ Later, when the class has got on and the col- Complete Sen- ' ^ o tences as an loquial exercises assume, more and more, the Answer. character of natural conversations between teacher and pupils, it is not so essential. But such a state of afiPairs assumes a knowledge of German which is beyond the possibilities of the ordinary course in German simply fit- ting for College. If the teacher is content to accept " yes " and " no " from the first he will soon find that he does most of the talking instead of the pupil. Good practice for the teacher no doubt, but failing in the very object he ought to strive to attain. After all, one of the great secrets of doing successful work I in conversation is to stimulate the pupils to do the greater part of it. Let the teacher talk as much as is necessary to make what he wants to do clear, then let him Shall the g^^ ^j^^^ |.j^g ^l^gg ^^gg more talking than he does. It has been my experience in observing the work in schools, that the average teacher does far too much of the talking. He seems to like to hear the sound of his own voice in the foreign tongue, and the poor pupils have to sit and listen when they ought to be employing every moment of the valuable time training their own vocal [ organs. To be sure in every well-organized course, it is highly advisable that the class should hear, as well as speak a great deal ; but there is a time for listening, and there is WORK IN SPEAKING. 91 also a time for letting the pupils talk to the teacher and to each other. Teachers seem to forget that no one ever learned to talk simply by listening to someone else. It re- quires a great deal of care and forethought under present school conditions, to be at all successful in this type of work. The only way to succeed is to see that the pupils do as much of the talking as possible. Even in this very elementary stage there are numbers of changes which can be made for variety^s sake, and which also guard against parrot-like work. If the selection is written in the third person, for example, the tiTe^ww-k^ questions can be so put as to give practice in the other persons, singular and plural. Change of tense can often be introduced, and practice in the use of other chapters of grammar. Interesting and illustrative material for this kind of work will be found in Walter's book. ^ The next higher grade of questions would still be based on imitation, but would not follow the wording of the text so closely, by bringing in words and expressions with which the pupils are already familiar. The pupils should in fact be gradually led to give their answers, as far as possible, in their own words, that is by utilizing, wherever feasible, phrases previously made their own. This type of question and answer work would, to all intents and purposes* correspond to a similar exercise on a text in the mother- tongue. The admirable method of paving the way for the natural discussion of the text, is one seen at the Muster- schule at Frankfurt-a-M. Here the pupils are early and reg- ularly taught to substitute other modes of expression for the 1 * * Englisch nach dem Frankfurter Reformplan, " Walter, Marburg, 1900. 92 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. same thought, see p. 105 of Director Walter's book cited above. For example : The advantage of the English lay not in bulky hut in con- struction, (a) The English were overwhelming not by the size of the ships, but their power lay in the construction of the ships. (h) In construction, not in bulk lay the advantage of the English ships. (c) The English ships were superior to the Spanish, not in bulk, but in construction. {d) The advantage of the English fleet (squadron) consisted not in bulk, but in construction. {e) The advantage of the English was in the light con- struction of their ships. (/) The English had not large ships, but they were better constructed. {g) The power of the vessels of the English was not caused by the extent, but by the construction of the ships. (A) The English men-of-war could do very much against the enemy because they were well constructed and not too large. {%) The English vessels were not large, but well constructed. {h) The advantage of the English men-of-war did not con- sist in size, but in construction. Q) The advantage of the English men-of-war was to be found in their construction. Lord Howard could observe that many of the large ships of the enemy were busy in stopping leaks, (a) observe = see ; many = a great number ; were busy = were engaged in. WORK IN SPEAKING. 93 (6) busy in = occupied with ; enemy = foe ; stopping leaks = repairing the damage ; observe = perceive. (c) observe = remark = see ; many of = a great part (deal) of. (d) observe = espy ; busy in stopping = worked to correct. (e ) busy = diligent. (/) could = was able. (g) Lord Howard saw . . . big men-of-war. (h ) large ship = a ship of great bulk. ( i ) many = most ; stopping = closing = shutting. Instead of the short question requiring a short answer, the questions can be so put that they call for long answers, or a r6sum6 of an anecdote, or a previous lesson, or the story of the book up to the day's lesson, may be given. But such a kind of work ought not to be attempted, at least as a regular exercise, until the class really can use the language with some degree of readiness. The fault of r6sum6s and the recitation of short stories is that the pupil too often gives them ver- batim. The recitation goes along nicely wherever well memorized, but is filled with inaccuracies the moment the pupiFs memory fails. R^sum^s should certainly not be^ attempted with any class before the material on which they/ are constructed has been thoroughly threshed out, and the pupils are not forced to follow the text slavishly. It would be better, as an exercise, to assign the class the anecdote or ! some part of the previous lesson to be learned by heart, i than allow this half learning by heart which purports to be \ something else. After reading a story, etc., which has been arranged in the form of question and answer, an excellent way to get the pupils to talk is for the teacher to ask leading 94 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. questions about the characters in the plot, and then let the different pupils contribute all they can. One question hy the teacher may lead to a dozen answers. It is doubtful if the time devoted to German in the aver- age high school will allow much development of the higher types of oral work I have suggested above. To talk over a page of literature freely, as one would talk over HS^er°Work ^ P^^^ ^^ English literature, to give in one's own words the gist of a paragraph, presupposes a longer apprenticeship than it is possible to give, as a rule. Still this kind of work is the goal towards which oral exercises should lead. Teachers should remember, how- ever, that it is only by persistently practising on lower forms of work that success in the higher ones is at all made possi- ble. Question and answer work closely following a text must always receive a great deal of attention. There is no other way to teach conversation in school than by this close kind of imitation. Teachers should not be too ambitious and attempt work for which the class is not yet fitted. To ask pupils to give orally, or write down, an anecdote they have read, before they are well grounded in the question and answer stage of conversation is folly. The result of the exercise will depend largely upon whether they have learned the piece in question by heart or not. In neither case are the results such as we wish for in this kind of work. In many books in this country, and in still more in Ger- many, it has been thought necessary by the Printed authors to print appropriate questions on the reading texts, for the use of teachers and pupils. Favorable and unfavorable criticism can be made on these WORK IN SPEAKING. 95 printed questions. They are certainly injurious if the teacher simply reads them off, a thing often done. Such use must result in the exercise losing every bit of naturalness it might otherwise have had. Interest, which we claim is one of the great recommendations of doing work in speaking, is sure to be lacking, in time, if the pupils know just what questions will be asked, and what answers they will be expected to give. Moreover it is surely beneath the dignity of a teacher to depend absolutely on such printed questions. The teacher knows, or ought to know, far better than the author just «^ ,^*x- what the class needs. No doubt such questions Shotad the ^ Teacher Form are a boon to the overworked or lazy teacher Tiiem ? ^1^0 still has to carry on work in speaking, for it requires most careful preparation on his part to work out a number of suitable questions. To make the most out of every sentence, to strengthen the pupil's knowledge of the language by giving practice in the more useful words and expressions, to gradually lead the pupil to replace them by other words and expressions to express the same thought, and thus pave the way for a freer use of the language, all this is not the work of a few minutes. Even the ability to form correct questions requires careful study. Help will be found in Reinstein's^ book, and also in Ohlert's.^ I suggest that the best way to prepare the questions is by first writing them out, and practically learning them by heart. Do not take them to class, or at least do not depend upon them. It gives the pupils a chance to criticise, and moreover if the prepared 1 ''Die Frageim Unterricht," Reinstein, Leipzig, 1895. 2"Allgemeine Methodik des Sprachunterrichts," Ohlert , Hannover 1893, p. 192. 96 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. questions are read off the same fault is committed as pointed out above. Being thus well prepared on the subject matter, let the questions rather depend upon the pupils' answers. Once the passage has been closely gone over by the teacher, who has prepared his own questions on it, printed questions upon the same may be welcome to the pupils as a help in reviewing for the next lesson. I do not think it is practicable or desirable in high school work to throw every text read into dialogue form carried on in the foreign language. Many selections for reading other- „ „ wise suited to the needs of the class are not How Far to Carry adapted, except perhaps here and there, to any- Dialogue Form, ^j^j^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ conversation. Another point against grinding over every reading lesson in the form of con- versation is the fact that the selections are often too difficult. At first the oral ability nearly keeps pace with the pupil's abil- ity to read, soon, however, at least with high school pupils, the gap widens tremendously between the power to read and the power to speak. This state of affairs is partly brought about by the greater emphasis placed upon reading from the very first, for after all our chief aim is to teach the pupils to read much and well. It is also more largely due to the fact that the pupils acquire the ability to read much faster than the corresponding ability to speak. The result is that the read- ing texts increase rapidly, or comparatively so, in difficulty, whereas the work in speaking goes on slowly and with little gradation. Thus we soon find high school pupils reading texts with ease which are far beyond them if conversation were made of equal importance with reading and were based upon it. It would be manifestly unfair to keep pupils of WORK IN SPEAKING. 97 high school age reading simple texts mentally beneath them, i in order to have material for conversation. The case seems rather different to me with younger pupils say of nine or ten, in the elementary school. It is no place here to discuss the teaching of German in elementary schools, still no doubt the oral method is best adapted to appeal to the young minds, and conversation would doubtless take up the major part of the time. Accordingly for a long time the necessary reading could be extremely easy, and planned to work well in dia- logue form between teacher and class. In this way the vocabulary necessary for speaking pur- 1 poses would practically be the same as the pupiFs readings vocabulary. That is, each word read would immediately pass into the productive class of vocabulary neces- B^iidi^*'^ sary for speaking. Thismanner of building up a stock of words could go on for a considerable time. In a shorter course, with more mature pupils, how- ever, in a course whose primary object is not speaking but reading, there must be at least two main groups of words in ^ the pupils' vocabulary. 1. A comparatively small group which only increases ^ slowly as time goes on ; the words which have reached the productive stage and can be used accurately and fluently in speaking. 2. A far larger group including the other, which grows '<* rapidly ; the words which belong to the reading vocabulary of the pupil, but which are, for the most part, not well enough known to use in conversation. We may represent the two vocabularies from the point of view of two concentric circles, of which the inner circle rep- 8 98 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. resents the productive stock of words, and the outer and far larger represents the receptive vocabulary, the words known for reading. We develop the words within the small circle as much as is consistent with our aim, still it stands to reason that in the high school the words will never be large in number, and the ability to use them very circumscribed. Largely for the reasons given above, I have suggested in the chapter on reading that it is advisable to have two kinds of texts. The first and more important kind com- prises reading texts chosen, primarily, for ofTexts.^^ reading alone, though adapted here and there perhaps for colloquial practice'. The second kind would be selected principally because it was suitable both from the point of view of difficulty, and its adapta- bility for practice in speaking. The first kind of reading could soon, in the case of high school pupils, be chosen from easy German literatui^e. The second would be best provided for first by constructed texts, or possibly by ea^y anecdotes. Before leaving the discussion of conversation it will be necessary to say something about the use of German as the regular language of the class-room, either by way of giving commands, or in teaching grammar. Let us Language of take the first — commands — the kind of con- tlie Class-room, ygpsation a teacher uses to conduct a class. If we leave out corrections of translation and the study of grammar, there is no occasion for the teacher to say very much to the class of this nature. Still it is important to take advantage of this little. Simple as the oft-recurring WORK IN SPEAKING. 99 expressions are, they all help towards producing a German atmosphere. The class gradually accumulates in this way a valuable addition, to its knowledge of the language. The habit formed at the beginning of the course, of teaching in a direct way the necessary expressions for conducting a class, and of using them daily and not only periodically, is to be commended. Once a beginning is made and syste- matically adhered to, the teacher will find that there are a number of things in time that can be said to the class just as effectively in German as in English. I advise teachers to make out a short list of questions and commands, and gradually use them as occasion offers. One can easily swell the number to a hundred or so of natural expressions. A good way to prepare the list is to write down what is con- stantly said in English to a class, and then the German] equivalents. In translation it seems best to make an exception to the rule of using German. It is an exercise in ^B^eTt.^"^^^^^*^ English, and the teacher had better consider it as such, and not mix the two languages. In class study of the grammar there is offered a great opportunity to use German as the language of the class. To meet the demand grammars written wholly, or partly, in the foreign tongue have appeared in Germany and in German ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ country. In Germany opinion is still divided. Many teachers who might other- wise use the foreign language in grammar teaching are to some extent restrained by the official regulations, notably of Prussia. There is certainly much to be said in favor of, and also much against, this practice, especially in courses organized 100 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. as those in Germany and where speaking the language is greatly emphasized. The main argument in favor is, that it is impossible to use the language too much in the class-room. Advantage should be taken of every available, opportunity, and just this study of grammar offers a large field for work in hearing and using the language studied. Moreover, such a dialogue carried on between teacher and class, is, providing of course that the pupils have the necessary command of the material, a most natural kind of conversation. The fact that the pupils are daily hearing and using the foreign language seems to the adherents of the plan to outweigh any objections that might arise on the score of the gram- matical vocabulary being largely made up of technical terms for which the pupil will later have no use. They say that the purely technical terminology, for the most part derived from the Latin and the same for all languages, is not dif- ficult to teach. In addition a great deal of other mate- rial is brought into use, and by constant repetition strength- ens the pupils' command and understanding of the spoken language. As against this, there are several objections which apply even more strongly to conditions in the United States than in Germany. First, a few preliminary words about the abilitv of the teacher to do this kind of work. Have Teacliers -^ the Necessary In Germany I have heard grammar lessons Knowledge? carried on in English, by teachers otherwise possessing a good command of the spoken language, who, in their grammar teaching, used expressions which sounded ex- tremely unnatural. They were correct in a measure perhaps, and yet I felt sure that an American or English teacher would WORK IN SPEXl^ma'; \ / , , 101 not explain the matter in the same vray> or.iti m^-si^'^. feriias. The difficulties of the teacher in securing a special vocabulary and turns of expression, such as a native teacher would use, are apparent. He will not learn them simply by the study of a grammar written in the foreign tongue. It seems almost necessary that he should take his seat as a school-boy once more, and in this way learn the grammatical termi- nology. Admitting that the teacher can handle this with sufficient accuracy, what objections can one raise against teaching grammar in German ? There are two essential requirements for good grammar teaching. It must be clear and it must be thorough. Ger- man grammar at the best is exceedingly difficult for English speaking people. However we teach German Clearness. r o ir jt ^ grammar, whether it be by the inductive or the deductive method, or partly by both, there is a great deal for pupils to master. Matters are constantly coming up which must be explained both by teacher and pupil. I have yet to learn that a teacher can explain, or that a class can under- \ stand an explanation, any too well, even when given in the I mother-tongue. The usual facts of the case are that im- portant principles have to be explained carefully many, many times, before the majority of the class grasp their sig- nificance. I am not leaving out of account the various exercises by way of illustration either, so fundamental as an aid to understanding. The chances against securing clearness when using the foreign language must certainly be increased. In order to keep within the range of the pupils' vocabulary the teacher is obliged to use a circumlocution, not always very clear, nor probably as accurately expressed as the more 102 TifE TEACHING OF GERMAN. dir^6t''gfcatement -he might have made in his own language. It is certainly of fundamental importance that the pupils themselves should also be taught to express accurately and definitely the more important facts of grammar, but it is too much to expect them to give accurate definitions or explana- tions in a foreigi/ language, which they can still only handle with difficulty. iTo be sure they can memorize a number of explanations from the grammar, but such a process does not / imply that the principles underlying them are understood/ But one might reply that it is sufficient proof of understand- ing if they can give appropriate illustrations and can other- wise employ the rules correctly. We wish both powers de- veloped. V^Ye wish to give our pupils the ability to employ grammatical material accurately and readily, and we also wish them to be able to state the reasons or general rules, as far as they are valuable, in a direct logical manner. To bring about the latter, the English language seems best adapted. We save a great deal of time, we are more likely to be undeiv stoed, and what we say is more likely to be remembered. 'Grammar teaching in the foreign language the pupils are studying runs a great danger of being superficial.\ Free discussion is hampered at every point by the pupils' inability to understand or use the language freely) The Thoroughness. i . i i i . n i i result IS that the teacher is compelled to keep the discussion down to the very simplest elements, and to merely touch the surface of things. Moreover the average teacher is too likely to regard the whole exercise as an exer- cise in speaking rather than an exercise in grammar. With such an attitude nothing could be more fatal to grammar teaching. If the teacher is more bent on securing some sort WORK IN SPEAKING. 103 of an answer to his question than he is on teaching grammar, if he deals with words and not with facts, then such work is a mere farce. It must be admitted that this danger lurks in all class work in conversation and doubly so in grammar teaching, for the subject is intricate, and the pupils' knowl- edge of the language as yet meagre. After all for secondary | work in the United States the question is not a very important \ one. The value we have attached to speaking is not great enough to warrant us in spending the time on teaching grammar in any other language than the mother-tongue. Our time is short for teaching grammar well as it is, and we must use the most direct method and the one that will pro- duce the best result for the time spent. Assuredly the teaching of German grammar in English meets the condi- tions best. If the teacher is anxious to eliminate the use of English in the upper classes and thinks the matter worth while, I sug- gest using a small German grammar in these classes. The chief difficulties of grammar will have been Elimination Of overcome by this time and the class will be English. -^ able to use the language with some degree of ! facility, so that the review grammar in German will not! cause them much trouble. The grammar study on the con- trary may receive fresh impetus thereby. Some preparation too may be made long beforehand towards making the change, by teaching, for example, the common technical terms. There is surely not much difficulty in learning to say « Dativ " for " Dative," or " Kasus " for " Case," etc. My present feeling towards the matter is that the field for conversation is broad enough without utilizing the language 104 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. of grammar. The dangers I have enumerated above make me very sceptical as to the outcome and the abiding results of grammar study carried on exclusively in German. I should certainly advise the moderately equipped teacher not to attempt it. CHAPTER V. GRAMMAR. The position that grammar shall occupy in modern lan- guage instruction has long been a debated point. One gen- eration cultivates grammar as a very precious thing in itself. The next generation says " Away with grammar, we will have none of it ! '' Still a third party, the more thoughtful, says " Grammar shall no longer be enthroned as a queen, but in the future shall serve as a handmaiden ! (We should no longer study the grammar for itself alone, but only as a means of better understanding the written and spoken lan- guag^ fit is a means to an end, and not the end itself, as held a generation or so ago.V As far as we can judge at present the last view is the sanest. Whatever formal value there is inherent in the study of German grammar we accept as a matter of course. On the other hanc^ the days are past for regarding the study of modern languages as purely mental gymnastics, and the centre of the study grammatical rules and paradigms) But even if we dethrone the "queen" it is no easy matter-TO decide what duties the "handmaiden" shall perform, and how she shall perform them ! Not to make too much of grammar, and yet enough ; how to teach it most effectively, most quickly, and most palatably, are questions that are ever coming up for solution. It is fundamentally important for the work that there should be, in every school course, a systematic study of 105 106 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. grammar suitable to the age and requirements of the pupils. Whether we make reading or speaking of paramount impor- tance, we owe it to our pupils that what they learn of the language should be well ordered, systematized study of knowledge. Haphazard instruction dependent Grammar. ui^on the caprice of the teacher is unworthy of our subject. \We are willing that our pupils should learn comparatively little grammar, but what they do learn shall be learned thoroughly.) As our time is short for this kind of work in the course, we must economize by "pigeon-hol- ing " the pupil's knowledge. This ordering of the knowl- edge ought to begin at once. We do not want the kind of knowledge that is simply based upon hearing and memory without understanding, or even the kind of grammatical knowledge that pupils acquire when all the chapters of grammar are studied at once, as it were. The pupil with such teaching cannot help having a mere jumble of unrelated facts, which in time will fade from consciousness. The " natural method " has much to answer for as regards the flippant way the pupil is taught grammar, or rather not taught grammar, and teaching according to the " reform method " is also not without its dangers in the hands of a teacher who is stronger in theory than in practice, lit is a beautiful theory that young pupils should unconsciouslyxearn the new language by much hearing and speaking, in much the same way that the child, in the first years of his life, gradually and unconsciously ac- quires a vocabulary and knowledge of formi:^ But the cases are by no means parallel. The child for instance, in spite of the immense advantages he has in power of imitation, en- vironment, etc., wastes a great deal of time in acquiring even GRAMMAR. 107 a moderate command of his mother-tongue, because he is as yet too immature to benefit by any systematization of his knowledge of the language. Pupils of high school age, however, have already reached the period in their mental development when they can, and ought to, profit by order! and arrangement in the work. But while most people will agree that there should be regular and thorough study of grammar as far as it goes, opinions will differ widely as to the best arrangement and method. Shall we teach in the old- fashioned way according to the long established categories, beginning with the definite article and ending with the inter- jection ? jOr shall we choose small bits from each chapter of grammar to suit the requirements of the hour, leaving the com- plete system to be built up at some later date ?\ Or, again, shall we teach our pupils according to the inductive method and let them gradually fashion their own grammar, as it were, from texts, either regular or constructed ? These are some of the questions that must be answered in this chapter on Grammar. The answer to the first two questions partly depends upon the age of the pupils, and partly upon the type of language to be studied. If the pupils have reached the age when they might easily profit by a systematic study Method " according to the traditional categories, the dis- cussion is narrowed down to the influence the kind of language brings to bear upon the arrangement of grammar study. In the present case we are dealing with high school pupils, and it is presupposed that, either through the study of English or both English and Latin they are sufficiently equipped for learning grammar in the above way, if deemed advisable. 108 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. A language as rich in inflection's German presents diffi- culties whatever arrangement we njire of grammar study, difficulties which would be scarc^y Hit in the study of Eng- Arrangement ^^^^' ^^^^ complexity in German contrasted of English with the simplicity of English noun declension Grammar. jg ^^^y. ^^^ ^^ ^^le many obstacles that have to be overcome. English lends itself to teaching grammar according to arbitrary installments^ more readily than Ger- man, for compared with German the language is almost formless. Leaving syntax and the verb forms aside, the study of English may be said to deal very largely with acquiring a vocabulary, for the changes which the words undergo in the sentence are so slight that they hardly need to be taken into account, at least compared with the cor- responding changes in German. Hence it makes practically little difference not only in what order the different cate- gories make their appearance in the course, but also whether the various parts of speech are introduced simultaneously or not. In fact the use of all the parts of speech together may be a distinct advantage. Obviously the reading and other exercises are not so likely to be stilted and barren of interest where the writer, or teacher, can use all parts of speech, at once if he so chooses. He is not forced to keep within a narrow range as is the case where the order of grammatical chapters is strictly followed. With a few principles he can set a wealth of material going in teaching English. Words the pupil must learn, to be sure, but otherwise he is not handicapped at every turn by inflectional endings which must be known before the ^vords can be used. The arrangement of English grammar then, depends largely upon the author's GRAMMAR. 109 or teacher's personal opinion, both as regards order of learn- ing the various form^ and syntactical usages. The main thing to be borne in mind is that gradually some complete, even though elementary knowledge, of the system as a whole phall be brought home to the pupil's understanding. If we allow the same loose arrangement in the study of German the chances of success are less certain. The large number of forms tends to produce great confusion unless ement ^^^^ method is followed, at least in the study of German of those parts of speech in which the forms are Grammar. subject to change. For example, if attributive adjectives are introduced before the declension of nouns and the simple uses of the cases are known by the pupils, con- fusion is sure to arise. It is brought about largely by the troublesome forms, but it is also to some extent increased by the introduction of words employed in a different function. Some well thought out arrangement is necessary for the study of grammar if for no other reason than the confusion that will most probably arise from trying to do too many things at once. We cannot immediately teach a large number of new forms and functions which are exceedingly difficult for the boy of any nationality to grasp, and particularly so for the American or English boy unused to gender of nouns, cases of nouns, and the use of inflectional endings, etc., unless he has had some experience with Latin. Another reason may be added for definite arrangement, namely the fact that inflectional endings are after all closely associated. After the pupil has a knowledge adequate for the time being of nouns, as regards forms and use of cases, the adjective declension follows naturally from the knowledge of " der," 110 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. which in its appropriate form the pupil is always expected to associate with the noun. The other uses to which the knowl- edge of the declension of " der '' and " ein '' may be put are too obvious for enumeration. But what has been briefly said above does not necessarily imply that the systematic study of grammar shall be given strictly in accordance with the usual order of the chapters in a scientific grammar. Let each teacher, if he is able, make his own arrangement, or follow some book which in the main suits him. The chief rules to follow are that the study ghould be pro- gressive, passing from the known to the unknown step by step. There should be no attempt to study a number of new forms and functions together. Such a course will BeP o^re^si^e ^°^^ result in a mere jumble or undue memory work not based upon reason, or both. Rather teach the fundamental facts of each chapter before going on to the next. There is no doubt a strong tendency inherent in this method of going through each chapter by itself, to neglect the chapters previously studied. While hammering at the nouns of the " Mann " type, the pupils may easily NO Neglect of ^^^ . ^iow to decline nouns like " Vater" and Previous Work. » " Sohn." Careful teaching, however, can avoid this condition of affairs to a large extent, but it is obvious that one cannot keep the whole grammar at concert pitch, under any system. If one thing is picked out for practice, it necessitates letting something else fall into more or less disuse. But a good teacher will somehow manage to keep the fundamental facts of grammar and syntax ringing in the pupils' ears once they have been studied. GRAMMAR. Ill As a matter of fact the study of the German grammar, beginning with the article and noun and so on through adjectives, pronouns, and verbs, is on the whole not a bad arrangement. The great objection to this order ^Itt^rr ^ is that it puts off the real study of the verb of the Verb. ^^ -^ until late in the course. In a course where little attention is given to speaking, where in fact all the teacher wishes is that his pupils shall have thoroughly read through the grammar and have done a few exercises on the various chapters, this objection will hardly be felt. It is only when one wishes to teach grammar with such a degree of thoroughness that the class can readily make use of the fundamental facts either for reading, writing, and to a less degree for speaking, that the distance between the study of the noun and the study of the verb is borne in upon one. There are so many things to do before the class has an ade- quate knowledge of nouns, adjectives, arid pronouns, and all these things take a great deal of time. Yet the knowledge of the verb is so extremely important that at first thought it might almost seem advisable to begin with it — undoubtedly the best plan in the study of French — and take up the study of the noun, etc., in connection with the various topics ' under verbs. " I think, however, the other procedure, ^. c, beginning with the noun and teaching as much of the verb as is necessary, is the more preferable of the two in the case of German. It is not because the actual forms of the verb \ are so difficult — in fact they come more naturally to the class thafa the inflection of other parts of speech — but verbs carry in their wake a number of other exceedingly complex matters, prominent among which is their influence upon 112 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. word order. This plan of teaching the necessary parts of the verb with the noun delays the complete study of the verb, but on the other hand when the real study comes the pupils are in a better position to cope with it than if the opposite plan were followed. Moreover the requisite verb forms are more easily learned than the nouns and adjectives. For a considerable period the knowledge of the simple tenses, the present and the preterite, and the imperative, will amply suffice. They will take as much time as we can spare from the main topic of grammatical study, besides the limi- tations set will allow the pupils time to get well grounded first in the simpler forms of the normal and inverted order. There is some doubt in my mind as to when the compound tenses, particularly the perfect tense, should be introduced. There seems no harm in teaching this tense, at least after the pupils know the tenses given above of a good stock of common verbs, and show that they have had enough practice to have formed correct habits with regard to word order in principal clauses. I suggest then a plan by no means new, namely the gradual absorption of verb forms in connection with the study of the other parts of speech in the usual order, beginning with the noun and the article, but leaving the more complete study of the verb until it appears in regular order. In addition, there is no reason why uninflected words, such as predicate adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, etc., should not from the outset be incorporated into the lessons. In fact adverbs and their effect on word order, of s^peed^ ^ ^^^ ^^^ more common uses of the prepositions, are best taught from the beginning in connec- tion with the study of inflected parts of speech. If we GRAMMAR. 113 except the verbs and the other uninflected words, the other parts of speech need no special arrangement as regards introduction. For example, the relative pronoun appears at a time when the class knows enough of German word order in principal clauses to readily learn the changes in word order in subordinate clauses. Of course, the work is at first very narrowly limited ; we are cramped on every hand, but these very limitations make for success. Gradually the whole grammar unfolds itself, with the ability of the pupils to make good use of forms and principles as they appear. In Germany the Reformers are strong in their belief in the study of grammar inductively. The reading text is made the basis of grammatical study, and represents the liv- ing language from which the pupils gradually Grammar evolve, with the aid of the teacher, a knowl- Inductively. ' ^ ^ ^ edge of the essential grammatical and syntac- tical rules. Some few teachers even go so far as to prac- tically let the pupils write their own grammar out in special exercise books. This is, for a time at least, their only grammar. But as Sweet says, " It would involve great waste of time and effort as compared ^ith the ordinary grammatical methods. And there would be a sense of unreality about it ; teachers and pupils alike would feel that they were only playing at grammar — pretending that they had to make their own grammar, while they knew perfectly well that the work had been done for them long ago, and that the results were accessible in hundreds of grammars of every degree of elaborateness." Moreover, anyone acquainted with the work of the average school-boy knows how difficult, if not impossible, it would be for the teacher, and how much 9 114 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. time it would take, to guard against inaccuracies creeping in. This plan is apparently not at all general. The usual method employed by teachers who still believe in the induc- tive method of grammar study is to use the printed grammar as a guide and book of reference. They require besides that the pupils shall, either orally or in writing or both, collect material on the various essential facts of grammar and syn- tax, more particularly by searching high and low in their reading, etc., for appropriate examples. For work of this kind again see Walter's English book, p. 120. For greater clearness as to how the inductive method of grammar study is used in Germany for the the Inductive study of English, two examples from Mangold ^ Metnod. ^^lY ^^ f^^jj^ suggestive. After saying that the inductive study of the grammar is so often misunderstood, and that he wishes to make the matter clear, he goes on : " Ich sehe z. B. bei Hausknecht, dass nach der dritten Lektion bereits die Formen von to do zusammengestellt werden konnen ; denn es sind folgende Satze dagewesen : — DoesnH ParJcer ring the bell loud enough f — DonUt you see it f — / wish Pd done it, — I havenH finished doing my Ger- man exercise yet. — This'll do, — Why didnH you look it out in the dictionary f — What does Blei mean f Ich lasse alle diese Satze von den Schiilern vorbringen, indem ich ihnen aufgebe, alle Beispiele von thun = ^o do zu sammeln. Ich schreibe die verschiedenen Formen wahrenddessen an verschiedene Stellen der Tafel, etwa so : * ''Methodische Fragen des englischen Unterrichts," Mangold^ Berlin, 1896, p. 21. GBAMMAK. 115 do did done doing does do Die Schiller finden leicht die Unterschiede der Tempora heraus, indem sie die einzelnen Formen ordnend bestimmen, und hiermit ist die voile Konjugation dieses Verbums gewon- Den ; sie braucht nur durch Uebungen befestigt zu werden. Ebenso sind alle Formen zu inducieren. Als syntaktisches Beispiel der Induktion wahle ich das Partizipium des Prasens gleichzeitig mit dem Gerundium oder Verbalsubstantiv. Zeit der Zusammenfassung etwa : Ende des ersten Halbjahres, nachdem der erste Teil des " English Student " durchgenommen ist. Es liegen darin etwa 44 Beispiele auf die Progressive Form : I am coming u.s.f., 9 auf die adjektivische Yerwendung : Bob waking up, 2 auf den Anschluss an Verba der Wahrnehmung : DonH you hear the man calling outf 5 auf die Formel I am going to. Die iibrigen 14 Beispiele geh(3ren zum Gerundium. Es kam 2mal vor als Subjekt, z. B. Walking has made me hungry y 6mal als Objekt, z. B. We can do our packing, einschliess- lich von Fallen wie The boys stop talking, 6mal in Yerbin- dung mit Prapositionen, z. B. I am very fond of learning, Hiermit sind die Grundziige fiir die syntaktischen Regeln iiber Partizip und Gerundium gegeben. Nachdem die Schiller die Beispiele mit Hulfe des Lehrers gesammelt und geordnet und die Prinzipien des Gebrauchs erschlossen haben, wird die Grammatik aufgeschlagen, die Eichtigkeit der gefundenen Eegeln bestatigt und zusammenfassend ein- gepragt. Es zeigt sich, dass manche wichtigen Falle noch fehlen, die fiir die Zeit aufgespart werden, welche zum 116 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. Abschluss des Partizip-Pensums bestimmt ist. Die Gram- matik muss ja immer wieder und wieder vorgenommen werden, da sich ihr System in konzentrischen Kreisen auf- bauen soil." The inductive study of grammar as seen in Germany, is one of the results of the reaction against undue emphasis of rules and paradigms of generations ago. The old plan of beginning with the rule and following with a —R^i L t ^ ^^^ examples has given place to the opposite procedure : examples first, rule afterwards. Instead of constructing the language laboriously in accord- ance with a number of rules which the pupil must take entirely on faith, the inductive method prescribes that one should start with the living language and fashion one's own rules, or at least prove for oneself the printed rules of the grammar. It is an attempt to apply to the study of gram- mar the same scientific method which has long since been applied to the study of sciences. In fact, the inductive method as applied to language study is nothing new. Ratke among others who have followed him, advocated it. Why is it that the method par excellence for all scientific work has had so many ups and downs when applied to the learning of foreign languages ? If we speak from a purely theoretical standpoint, there are some fundamental advantages which may be claimed for this method, as against the more usual synthetic method so . ^ , , much used in the past. In the first place it Advantage of ... . the Inductive puts the pupils in the right attitude towards Method. grammar and its relation to the language. In- stead of regarding the language as something constructed to GRAMMAR. 117 comply with a number of abstract rules, he learns the correct point of view, namely that rules are merely attempts on the part of scholars to deduce, from the language, some sort of system for the sake of guidance. It is also psychologically and didactically correct that the understanding of abstract rules of grammar should grow out , of the examination of an abundance of individual cases, i, e., \ the abstract should grow out of the concrete. Abstract Drawn ^ from the If the pupil with the help of the teacher Concrete. abstracts, for himself, the principles and rules from the study of numerous examples, the kind of mental activity he has exercised to arrive at results will make his knowledge sounder and more easily retained. Moreover, the adherents of the inductive m'ethod claim it is \ more interesting to the pupils. " Es weckt und erhoht das In- teresse; durch das Selbstfinden, das Selbstent- decken wachst nicht nur die Kraft, es steigert sich auch Eifer, Freudigkeit, und Aufmerksamkeit des Ler- nenden." ^ The usual criticism made against the inductive study of grammar is that it is unsystematic. If we take the ordinary view of the matter it certainly does lack a visible system. The pupils are at first taught only fragments tematiT?^^" ^^om different parts of the grammar, just what the teacher thinks necessary for the present purpose. In the teacher's mind, however, there is present all the time some preconceived arrangement, and the results of the study will no doubt enable the pupils in time to form a well-knit system. In the meanwhile the pupil follows his ^ "Encyclopadie des franz. Unterrichts," Wendt, Hannover, 1895, p. 161. 118 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. guide implicitly, just as under the old method he had to accept the rules of grammar on faith. What if the teacher is not a suitable guide ? Training in the use of the scientific method will do the pupil little good if the teacher has, after all, made but a muddle of the whole matter of grammatical study ; if, where we awaited a thorough preparation for forming a sys- tem, we find nothing but disconnected fragments. No method of grammar study is so dependent upon the teacher for its success or failure as the inductive. The syn- thetic study calls for a book arranged more or less strictly Success according to the established categories of gram- Depends Upon mar, containing necessary illustrative material, the eac er. ^^^ ^^^ main task of the teacher is to teach according to the book. In the inductive study of the gram- mar based upon the living language the teacher controls the grammatical study to a great extent. It depends upon him whether at the end the pupils have been taught the necessary chapters of grammar. Hence, it is not alone fundamental that the teacher should know how to speak and write the language correctly, but he must also have a very clear idea of just what is essential, how to separate the important from the unimportant in the mass of material. Moreover, this must in the end result in a methodical, well constructed, and well balanced plan as to how the pupils are to be gradually led to a well rounded knowledge of the main facts of gram- matical usage, which can eventually be systematized. What has been done and what is to be done, as well as how it is to be done, must stand out clearly in the teacher's mind. Of course the teacher will find lesson books written for just this kind of work, still they must always be largely suggestive. GRAMMAR. 119 The great bulk of the thinking and planning must be done by the teacher. Then there is the problem to be solved of how to obtain material suitable for the deduction of the main rules of gram- mar and syntax. Even in the study of English and French „ . . , - it has been found expedient to either choose or the Deduction construct texts that are rich in particular forms, of Rules. ^j, allied groups of forms, and from which rules can be readily deduced. Bierbaum, for example, says : "In Bezug auf die fiir ein Lehrbuch geeigneten Lese- stiicke, an denen nicht allein die Sprachfertigkeit, sondern auch die Grammatik auf induktive Weise gewonnen werden soil, neigt sich jetzt die Mehrzahl der Anhanger der neuen Lehrweise immer mehr der Ansicht zu, dass dieselben auch derartig beschaffen seien, ganz besonders diesem letzteren Zwecke zu dienen, d. h. die zur grammatischen Anschauung notigen Beispiele in geniigender Anzahl zu enthalten. Das kann selbstverstandlich bei keinem einzigen Lesestiicke der Fall sein, welches, ohne besonders fiir diesen Zweck bear- beitet zu sein, aus irgend einem Buche abgedruckt wird." ^ While it is possible to apply the inductive method to the study of all languages, there is no doubt that highly inflec- tional languages, such as Latin and German, do not lend ADDiication of ^^^^selves so easily to it as the English and v the Inductive French type. These difficulties do not so etho . much arise from the mere deducing of the rules from the text, as from the confusion that must neces- sarily result from starting with a text that contains a large *'* Lehrbuch der englischen Sprache," Bierbaum, I. Teil., p. iv, Leipzig, 1892. 120 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. number of new forms at the very outset. For, as we have seen, the advocates of the inductive method also hold strongly to the belief that the work should be based upon some natural text, however simple, and not upon discon- nected sentences made to cover a particular point. Excel- lent as Hausknecht's " The English Student '^ ^ may be for the study of English, the selection, if given in German, would turn out most inappropriate for beginning reading. Let us take, for example. Sketch I., First Dialogue, Getting up. In a bedroom of Charterhouse School at Godalming, Surrey. Tim (pulling the blanket and counterpane off Bob's bed). Hulloa, Bob, get up. Doesn't Parker ring the bell loud enough ? Bob (waking up and rubbing his eyes). What, six o'clock already ? I still feel very sleepy. Tim. That's how it is every morning. Make haste and get dressed. It's twenty minutes past. Have you forgotten what the Doctor said last week? Bob, No, so I won't be late again. (Throwing off the sheet, he gets out of bed, puts on his trousers and socks and begins to wash). I say, where's my sponge ? Tim, Don't you see it ? There it is. It has dropped down on the floor. Bob, All right, I'll pick it up. 2im (after a few minutes). Are you ready now ? Bob, Yes, I'm coming. I'll just brush my hair and put my brush and comb away. 1 *' The English Student," Hausknecht, Berlin. GRAMMAR. 121 Tim, That's good. We are just in time. If we hastily put the selection into German the matter takes on a different aspect. The nouns and adjectives put on endings, the word order gets complicated, the verb forms are not so easy. Look at the variety of tenses and clauses. There are simple verbs, and compound verbs with separable prefixes, prepositions, etc. Almost every chapter of gram- mar is represented in this one little piece. The only thing we can do is to hammer the sketch into the pupiFs memory just as it is. Any change, by the way of exercise in conver- sation, means more memory work and added confusion, for, unfortunately, the endings of nouns, adjectives, and verbs, change all too readily. It is obvious that all points of grammar cannot be dis- cussed together in school work, hence each lesson must be left unfinished although it contains a large number of loose ^ threads to be joined together at some future Grammar must ^ -^ ^ *=* be Learned time. This entails on the part of the pupils on Faith. ^ large amount of pure memory work. If con- versation or written exercises are attempted, a still larger number of inflectional endings and other grammatical and syntactical usages must be taken and learned on faith. The confusion, moreover, is bound to be increased if any changes, however slight, are made in the working over of the text. A change of case in the noun carries with it a change in the article or adjective modifiers. A change in tense may also cause a change in word order. No, we cannot teach high school pupils German in that way. We must, as I have said before, make a modest beginning, and especially where there are a number of forms to master bring our main efforts to 122 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. bear upon teaching pupils in an orderly way the cardinal points of grammar and syntax. The old-fashioned way of drilling on the grammar was in- adequate. Pupils were set to learn paradigms off by heart, then followed a number of disconnected sentences to be translated into English, and an equal number Method " ^ ^^ translated back into German. Under the chapter of personal pronouns, for example, the teacher often thought his work finished if the pupils could give fluently the various forms, and then, with constant reference to the paradigms, could use the forms in detached sentences, each form occurring perhaps once. But though pupils could scarcely be expected to use pronouns after hav- ing written the various forms a few times, this skimming over the ground was deemed sufficient, and the class ad- vanced to the next chapter where a similar process went on. If by chance personal pronouns were required in the new set of sentences, they were usually forgotten by that time, and a search had necessarily to be made in the paradigms to find the needed form or forms. Mere paradigm learning and writing is absolutely insuffi- cient, and we must resort to some other means. I am not against paradigm learning, especially in languages like Latin and German, for, if well learned, they act as a ara gm store-house of forms which the pupil, if in doubt about a form, can draw upon. It is a living book of forms which is always with him. But what good is a mass of forms learned off by heart, if they are only so many solid blocks, if the pupil has not been taught, by numerous and varied exercises, to split these blocks into little pieces, QRAMMAB. 123 and use each one not once but many times. It is little good to a pupil if he can rattle off the declension of " der Knabe '' and still stumbles and errs when called upon to use any one particular form. There are many teachers who pay far too much attention and take far too much time teaching their classes to give and write quickly the declensions and princi- pal parts of verbs, as if the pupiFs knowledge depended entirely upon the way in which he could run through them. Learning declensions is the least a pupil ought to be ex- pected to do towards gaining control of the new language. The same type of teacher who drills on paradigms and neglects the language, usually makes the mistake also of talking too much about grammar. Now one might learn all the rules of grammar and syntax off by heart, Language ° j j y Neglected or be able at least to answer a host of gram- for Grammar, matical questions correctly, and yet know next to nothing about the living language of books and con- versation. Some teachers have a fondness for teaching grammar by such questions as : How many declensions are there in German ? What nouns belong to the first strong declension ? Are there any feminine nouns in the declension ? What can you say of nouns ending in " chen '' and " lein " ? When do you use the inverted order? These questions are all right in their way, but, I should much prefer the pupils to decline nouns of the first strong declension cor- rectly, or better still use them correctly, than to be able to give the rule. Pupils brought up simply to answer gram- matical questions will tell you glibly that diminutives in " chen " and " lein " are always neuter in gender, and the next moment in their work will write or say " die Madchen " 124 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. or " der Baumchen/' or will violate the rule for inverted word order although they can recite the rule. We should not accomplish our end any better if grammars and lesson-books doubled or trebled the exercises, more especially the translations from English into German. They would only make the book bulky, and even Double the then would be insufficient for our purpose. Exercises ? Instead of one form appearing twice, the same would appear perhaps six times, but as they would be scat- tered among a large number of sentences the effect of the repetition would be lost, to say nothing of the amount of valuable time wasted by the increased number of sentences to be written — time which could be far better spent in other ways. What we want is to take one form or combination of forms which naturally go together, and then arrange a kind of exercise that will act like a steam-hammer. We must hammer, hammer, hammer on a grammatical steam-hammer f^^^ ^j, ^q[j^i until something like a habit, at Exercises. ^ ... . least for the time being, is formed in the pupils' minds. Later on occasional hammering will serve to keep up what the pupils have once learned. The method will be largely oral. Instead of asking questions about grammar, or being content with listening to the recitation of paradigms, we will talk grammar. That is to say, we will arrange a kind of conversation, rather oral exercise in the form of question and answer, of such a nature that the manner of the question will force the pupil to employ the grammatical point which the teacher wishes to emphasize. For example, suppose one wishes to teach the weak declension of the GRAMMAR. 125 adjective, more particularly one case — the accusative sing- ular. For nouns let us take objects lying on the teacher's desk, things with which the pupils are very familiar, so that they can concentrate their attention on the one point to be learned. Our material for the present will be pencils of various colors, books, and chalk. It should be made clear to the class what the teacher wishes done. It is understood also that they are always to answer in complete sentences. If the class has learned the forms of the weak declension the teacher can simply ask the first question, if not, of course he will have to answer the first question himself in order to start the class. Welchen Bleistift habe ich in der Hand ? Sie haben den roten Bleistift in der Hand. Welchen Bleistift habe ich jetzt in der Hand ? Sie haben den blauen Bleistift in der Hand. Was nehme ich jetzt in die Hand ? Sie nehmen die weisse Kreide in die Hand. Fraulein M., nehmen Sie die rote Kreide. Welche Kreide nimmt Frl. M ? Sie nimmt die rote Kreide. Worauf lege ich jetzt das braune Buch ? Sie legen das braune Buch auf den Tisch. (auf den grossen Tisch, etc.). The questions and answers are given quickly and other objects and qualities are introduced into the exercise. If other cases have already been studied they too will serve to make the work less monotonous. It can easily be seen too, that with each step made in the grammar the exercises will become less and less restrained. Natural conversation is it 126 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. not, and such it does not make any claim to be, especially at first when the work may seem stupid to the observer who knows it all. The only claim it makes is that it gives the pupils abun- dant practice on one little grammatical point, practice that cannot be given so well in any other way. Instead of skip- ping about through the whole adjective declen- PraSice!^ sion, as the pupil does if set to write sentences, or if he learns to answer questions based upon the reading text, he first goes through a preliminary drill on the individual forms. By means of this he acquires the habit of using the correct form. If the class were to write out an exercise with the same amount of practice on each of the forms it would take hours, and then would not be as effective as the oral work which is accomplished by spending a few minutes daily. The old way of learning paradigms and writing a few sentences and then passing on to the next division of the grammar, is weak on the side of practice. There is too much grammar and too little practice, and that little is too scattered. The method of teaching the language by conversation, either based upon pictures or the connected reading, gives abundant practice in the use of the language, but too little attention to the building up of the grammar Lebendige ^^ fundamentally important in learning a lan- guage like German. This method of living grammar, " lebendige Grammatik '' as Hiiusser ^ calls it, which we advocate, contains both systematic grammar and practice. It is preparatory work to the freer conversation 1 "Lebendige Grammatik," Hausser, Potsdam, 1902. GRAMMAR. 127 based upon the reading text. The child must learn to crawl before he can walk. The pupil must be sure of his inflec- tional endings, by detailed study and abundant practice, before he can be expected to use all forms as they appear haphazard in the story or in ordinary conversation. The type of grammar teaching that I mean is not new in this country, and is well illustrated in Spanhoofd^s " Lehr- buch der deutschen Sprache.^^ An examination of this book will make clear that every essential point of Spanhoofd's German grammar can be worked out on the Lehrbuch. ° - plan sketched in the " Lehrbuch." This method of teaching living grammar, however, does not confine the teacher to any one text-book, any systematic grammar answering the purpose. The teacher can construct -., „ ^ « , his own question and answer exercises himself The Text-Book ^ Merely a better than any book can do it for him, for he Foundation. ^i^^^ knows the difficulties the class has. In- deed there will be .more life and freedom in the work, if neither teacher nor pupil is bound to a text-book written on this plan. At the most the suggested development of the grammar and the sentences given ought merely to be regarded as a foundation and guide for the work. The teacher needs a clear insight into the difficulties to be overcome in German grammar, and should then plan a series of exercises to give the most practice in the least time on each. As I have intimated above, the vocabulary will for a long time be merely common objects in the school-room, especially objects which can be easily manipulated, for example, pen- cils, books, paper, chalk, penholders, blackboard, door, win- * "Lehrbuch der deutschen Sprache," Spanhoofd, D. C. Heath & Co. 128 THE TEACHING OF GEKMAN. dows, etc. In addition to nouns a number of verbs is needed of course. At first the knowledge of the present tense will suffice — verbs expressing action, or a states J,^® ^ , like "ffehen, kommen, stehen, sitzen, setzen. Vocabulary. . . liegen, legen, offnen, schliessen, geben, leihen, nehmen, sehen/' etc. Then adjectives of form, size, and color, and some prepositions and adverbs will be enough to make a start. The vocabulary will gradually change, of course, for the sake of variety. The teacher, for example, can fill his pockets with useful material, or even go so far as to bring a cup and saucer, or a knife, fork, and spoon. But, as I have said, our main object is to teach grammar, in the preliminary stages. Therefore we must use common objects with which the pupils are, by constant repetition, perfectly familiar, both in meaning and in inflection, at least as far as w^e have gone, so that they can focus their whole attention upon the one grammatical point we wish to teach. If we kept changing the objects and the verbs, etc., the pupils would be troubled and easily confused wdth gender, etc., and concentration on the point in question would be less effective in its results. For the sake of convenience we select objects in the school-room. The work is easier to handle and can be made more definite than if we choose our vocabulary at random. The objects are before the class, and the quasi- tricks the teacher does with them give the series of question and answer a kind of logical connection ; at least there is sufficient unity in the work for the pupils to follow. With skill, too, the teacher can make the naturalness of the work greater by transitional sentences in German. The school- room, with its pictures, books, tables, pupils, and teacher, GRAMMAR. 129 etc. ; then the parts of various objects that the pupil ought to know, including parts of the body, and different articles of clothing, offer a large field for work. When the school- room is exhausted, there is the home or a definite part of the home to picture definitely to themselves and " talk grammar " about. Further development will hardly be called for with high • school pupils, for from this preliminary stage of the language ' they pass to a more natural stage of conversation based upon the readiner. In fact the two kinds of work Conversation ° Based on follow each other directly, for after a section Reading. ^£ grammar has been treated in this first way a reading exercise based upon the section in question, such as found in Thomases Grammar, is studied, and then serves ^ among other things as material for a little conversation. Let us take the personal pronouns for the sake of a further illustration. We first make the division between personal and non-personal uses. The personal we again split up into smaller groups. A natural one would be the PronouM ^^^ ^^ *^^ ^^^^ ^^^ second person, first " ich " and "Sie," then "ich'' and "du." If the pupils know the declension of the first and second person, singular and plural, the work will go faster the first day. If the teacher prefers, however, the forms can be given when needed. We then arrange a short exercise of simple ques- tions and answers in which the pupils are forced to use the different cases, first the singular, and then the plural forms. The nominative, through use with the verb, is probably well known, so the time can be spent on the dative and accusative. With the verbs " geben, nehmen," etc., and a number of 10 130 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. objects, the forms "mir — Ihnen, mich — Sie" will be readily handled by the class. Haben Sie ein deutsches Buch ? Ja, ich habe ein deut- sches Buch. Geben Sie mir das Buch. Was tun Sie ? Ich gebe Ihnen ein (deutsches) Buch. C, haben Sie auch ein franzosisches Buch ? Geben Sie mir das Buch. Was tun Sie ? Ich gebe Ihnen das Buch. Welches Buch geben Sie mir? Ich gebe Ihnen das deutsche Buch. D., gibt C. mir ein deutsches oder franzosisches Buch ? Er gibt Ihnen ein deutsches Buch. Ich nehme jetzt das andere Buch. E., welches Buch gibt er mir jetzt ? Er gibt Ihnen das fran- zosische Buch. Haben Sie zwei Bleistifte, F.? Welche Farben haben die zwei Bleistifte ? Sie sind rot und gelb. Leihen Sie mir die zwei Bleistifte einen Augenblick. Was tut er, G.? Er leiht Ihnen zwei Bleistifte. Was fiir Blei- stifte leiht er mir ? Er leiht Ihnen einen roten und einen gelben Bleistift. Jetzt gebe ich Ihnen die Bleistifte. Was tue ich ? Sie geben mir die Bleistifte. Etc. The work must go fast, though of course not too hurriedly or with careless pronunciation. Having once well started the work, the teacher can hand over the exercise to the pupils themselves, and let them ask the questions and give the answers. Ten minutes, or if the class is working well perhaps fifteen minutes, is enough, then change to something else. The next day a quick review and the study of new forms, and practice in combining them with the older. Meanwhile the letter in Thomas's Grammar has been trans- lated, grammatical difficulties have been explained, and the verbs and nouns are well under control. We are now ready to ask questions based upon the text, going over it a number OKAMMAB. 131 of times so as to give practice in the use of pronouns of different persons. This type of oral work is purely formal in nature, and is not sufficient to master the difficulties of German grammar. It must be supplemented at every turn by much oral and written work on paradigms. Much of the dullness and ineffectiveness of the old- faijhioned recitation of paradigms can be done away with by a variety of exercises in which the verb occupies the principal place. In addition to conjugating ^oms^tionof ^j^ 1^ fQj.j^jg ^i ^^^ Eeformers advo- cate conjugating in entire sentences ; and the kind of sentence to be conjugated is taken from the reading passage being studied. Although such an exer- cise may be carried to absurdity, a moderate amount is ex- tremely valuable, for the pupils not only attain certainty in the forms of the verb, but also facility of speech is gained, and a great deal of practice in other matters of form and syntax. Many excellent hints for work of this kind will be found in Walter's book.^ Instead of conjugating simply " ich schreibe " in all forms, interrogative, negative, interrogative-negative, throughout the different tenses, we can also take such a sentence from their reading as : " Ich schreibe meinem Bruder einen Brief" in the same way. Ich schreibe meinem Bruder einen Brief und er schreibt mir einen. Wir schreiben unsrem Bruder einen Brief und er schreibt uns einen. ^ " Der fi-anzosisclie Klassenunterricht. I, Unterstufe," Walter, Mar- burg, 1888. 132 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. Du schreibst deinem Bruder einen Brief und er schreibt dir einen. Ihr schreibt eurem Bruder einen Brief und er schreibt euch einen, etc. Another example is the conjugation in the form of ques- tion and answer. One pupil asks the question, the next gives the answer, and so on, until the tense is complete. Ich hatte vor ein paar Tagen ein kleines Abenteuer. 1. Wann hatte ich ein kleines Abenteuer? "S^or ein paar Tagen hattest du (batten Sie) ein kleines Abenteuer. 2. Wann hattest du ein kleines Abenteuer ? Vor ein paar Tagen hatte ich ein kleines Abenteuer. 3. Wann hatte er ein kleines Abenteuer ? Vor ein paar Tagen hatte er ein kleines Abenteuer. Etc. Even the monotony of practice on simple verb forms may be relieved by a large variety of exercises. If we take the first six forms in a given reading passage, such as " kam, bist, geht, erscheinen, hatte, sass," facility in the use of forms may be acquired as follows : 1. On one tense. Each pupil takes a verb as it appears in order in the text, ich komme, ich bin, ich gehe, etc. 2. With additional change of person, ich komme, du bist, er geht, wir erscheinen, etc. 3. Further change, ich komme, du bist nicht, geht er ?, erscheinen wir nicht ?, etc. If each pupil takes a diflferent tense in order, in addition to the other changes, the synopsis becomes very complicated, ich komme, du warst nicht, ist er gegangen ?, etc. GRAMMAR. 133 For further illustration of similar work see Walter's book, quoted above. Such exercises are not intended to displace the more usual drill on verb forms, they will, however, add variety to verb work, and thus have a place in the course. It affords excellent practice to change sentences and whole passages that admit of it, not only as regards person and number, but also as regards tense. A simple change in the verb may cause a number of other changes in Further DrlU. , *" i./v. , i i . the sentences, dinerent personal and possessive pronouns, different word order. During the study of the passive voice one of the best exercises is to change suitable sentences from the active into the passive voice, and vice versa. The ordinary reading may also be used to give prac- tice in the use of the dependent word order by employing such formulas as "ich weiss^dass, es ist nicht,wahr^dass, ich glaube nicht dass, ich freue mich, dass,'' in connection with principal clauses. Later, a similar kind of exercise can be used to teach indirect discourse. During the study of rela- tive pronouns not only drill in word order, but also practice; in the correct use of the relative is best given by taking pairs of simple sentences from the reading and forming, complex sentences from them containing relatives. Pupils also need much practice in the substitution of correct pro- nouns for nouns. A helpful exercise may be found in the first German Berlitz book. It consists of questions contain- ing a number of nouns, some or all of which are to be repre- sented in the answer by pronouns. Also answers containing a number of pronouns, such as " Nein, sie gibt ihn nicht ihr sondem ihm," from which suitable questions containing appropriate nouns shall be formed. •134 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. For those who regard such work in " living grammar '^ as too unnatural, too mechanical, there still remains the more usual drill on a particular point by numerous examples. This drill is given in at least two ways in Ger- Exercises many. Believers in translation give a number of short sentences embodying the point in question in the mother-tongue, which are then translated orally into the foreign language. The other school prefers using the inductive method to a large extent, making their pupils give illustrative examples that they have had in their reading, and that they are now collecting, in order to fix the rule. This last way is extremely effective in its results if controlled by a teacher who knows how to keep the material contained in the reading alive. As both kinds of exercises are aimed to give considerable drill on one difficulty at a time, and to gradually build up the whole structure of gram- mar by good examples, they are bound to show good results in the work of the class. Personally I prefer the " living grammar " plan by which almost all the work is carried on in German in the preliminary stage. Later, English sen- tences and examples from the reading based upon a given point of grammar, either to be written or given orally, furnish an important supplement. After all the main thing is steam-hammer exercises on all that is fundamental, and without these German grammar cannot be taught successfully. German conversation in its first stages, without a distinct grammatical tendency, will be just as ineffective and super- ficial as writing a few German sentences on a whole chapter of grammar. In every well-constructed course the grammar will not GRAMMAR. 135 be studied through once for all. It goes almost without say- ing that the first time is not sufficient. At first only the abso- lute essentials are taught, principally the knowl- Repetition of & ? r r ./ Grammar edge of forms and the more simple rules of study. syntax and word order, the study of which it is presupposed will be included in the study of the various chapters of grammar. The aim of the first course is to give the class power to read easy texts, and pave the way to a more thorough knowledge of grammar and syntax and power to handle the language generally. As the Report of the Committee of Twelve practically embodies my own ideas for both courses, I will give them here : "Drill upon the rudiments of grammar, that is, upon the inflection of the articles, of such nouns as belong to the language of every-day life, of adjectives, pronouns, weak verbs and the more usual strong verbs, also upon the use of the more common prepositions, the simpler uses of the modal auxiliaries, and the elementary rules of syntax and word-order.'' The conjugation of the subjunctive, or at least its use, had better be reserved until the second course of grammar study. For high school classes one year ought to be suffi- cient for this preliminary study. The next year and the following years ought to be spent in reviewing and adding to the work done in the first year. There should be a constant review of forms, and particularly a detailed study of syntax. The Committee of Twelve again oifers a good brief guide to the more important points to be considered. 136 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. "The work should comprise, . . . also grammatical drill upon the less usual strong verbs, the use of the articles, cases, auxiliaries of all kinds, tenses and modes (with special references to the infinitive and subjunctive), and likewi|e upon word-formation." * During the first year the study of the gramm^gvill doubtless be a daily occupation of the class, and closely related to all other work done in the course. But as the reading assumes greater importance after the Grammar Days. . . first year, it will probably be found more advantageous to set apart a day, or days, each week, as is deemed desirable, and treat the subject of grammar by topics, as fully as the present knowledge of the class warrants. The adoption of this plan, however, does not mean that grammar is to be a "tabooed" subject on other days. On the contrary, the topic that furnished the basis of the work on " grammar day " ought to be illustrated, and the knowl- edge of it furthered, either by the reading, the oral, or the written work, or by all three. As an essential part of the plan of this topical study, I suggest that the pupils go botanizing so to speak. After the general bearings of the topic are known, they should collect and keep in an exercise-book illustrative examples from their reading. If carefully done and aflerwards made use of, such study ought to aid in the pupiPs securing a good grasp of the salient facts of German grammar. CHAPTER VI. ^ WRITTEN EXERCISES. Written work falls naturally under two heads : 1. Written exercises of imitative character in which the mother-tongue is avoided. 2. Composition as usually understood, ^. e., translation from English into German. We will take them up in the order given. No one will disagree from the opinion that written exer- cises ought to be given a prominent place in modern lan- guage work. They are one of the most effective tests of thorojighness and accuracy, a check against the superficiality which is so likely to arise when the pupil is not made to feel that he is accountable to the teacher for the right spell- ing of the forms, and if the oral work is not, at every point, supplemented by writing. Little errors inadvertently creep into the best oral work, and in time are difficult to eradicate. It is not always possible for the teacher to tell by the pro- nunciation whether the grammatical forms are correct or not, and often the teacher only hears the right form in his mind. Written exercises give a fitting finish, for the time being, to the oral work on any material, and fortunately they can also be made interesting to the pupils, another thing in their favor. It is not always necessary that the written work should be identical in form with the oral, but it should ai- rways be old material ; it should contain no new words or 137 138 THE TEACHING OF GERMAK. expressions. It practically means that a r^sum^ of all that it is most necessary for the pupil to retain should, as a final test, be put in writing. Naturally then the type of work will be for a long time purely imitative, closely associated at every point with the oral exercises, or, if another type of composition is being studied, the reading. WritteStork based upon material which the pupils have not thoroughly prepared, either by oral practice or by some equally effective means, is almost sure to be poor in results. It is too much to expect of pupils that they should write well in a foreign language on any other than the imitative basis. We may also divide written exercises of the first kind into : 1. Writing of memorized work, either single sentences, colloquies, or poems. Colloquies that have been thoroughly studied seem to me to be best adapted to this grade. With pupils of high school age the study of poems Work^ ^® will come later, when they have acquired a fair knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. Then naturally a few poems are given to be learned by heart. Writing down would only be given as an exercise to test more especially whether all the members of the class had learned the poem. It would be rather uninteresting to hear each member of the class recite the same thing. 2. Dictation, This is rather a higher type of exercise than the foregoing, inasmuch as hearing is added to memory. It can be made of various degrees of difficulty and thus used for all classes, though in the first year the most time will be given to it while the pupils are learning to spell. The ordi- nary pupil hears and sees badly at first. Everyone knows that it is not an easy fight to teach pupils to spell correctly, to WRITTEN EXERCISES. 139 impress upon them the importance of seeing each new word accurately for the first time. Dictation is also valuable as a test for grammatical sureness. Success in dictation will depend largely upon : 1. Material. 2. Manner of reading. 3. Length of the dictation. 4. Correction. With high school pupils it is hardly necessary to begin with individual words. The unit can be the sentence, and this we wish the pupil both to catch the meaning of, and interpret orthographically and grammatically correctly by means of the written symbols. Here again it is well to emphasize the importance of choos- ing old material, with which the pupils are very familiar, for dictating purposes. It is a great mistake to attempt for some time to dictate unstudied connected work, even as an experiment. If only old material is used, a great many mis- takes in orthography and grammar are avoided, and this is just what we wish to do. The exercise is not primarily to see how many mistakes the pupils will make in spelling, but rather to see how few. After a selection has been thor- oughly studied in many ways and the pupils are quite at home with it, then, and only then, have we a right to expect pupils in the elementary stages of the language to write dic- tation based upon it. As suitable material for dictation purposes, then, I suggest, for some time, a part of the review of the reading lesson. It can be assigned beforehand or not, depending on the age and ability of the class. In this way the minds of the pupils will be free enough to catch whole 140 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. phrases, and later whole sentences, and not be slavishly bound down to the orthography of each word. With this kind of dictation even weak pupils do not feel that they are attempt- ing the impossible, and thus they are not so likely to get con- fused, a state which soon leads to getting behind and glaring inaccuracies. In time the well-studied review will be found too simple, especially for the brighter scholars who may be found writing ahead from memory. The teacher can easily avoid this state of affairs by various changes in the selection it- self, such as change of person, tense, word order, construction, or the introduction of words with which the pupil is already familiar. From this point the dictation can be graded to a certain extent up to the unseen, which is now and then use- ful as a searching test of accuracy in hearing and under- standing and grammatical knowledge in the highest classes, A word is necessary about the manner of reading. In the earlier stages, where the dictation closely resembles reading matter with which the pupils are familiar, it is not necessary to read over a section before the real dictation Manner o begins. On the other hand, if the work is an unseen passage it is far the better plan to read over at least sections of the whole dictation beforehand. It gives the pupils a better sense of security, and they have time to think of the meaning and of the grammatical rela- tions that appear. It is no longer mere groping in the dark. Considerable time is required to get the right tempo in which to read out the phrases into which each sentence naturally divides itself. Having once decided the general rate con- sistent with careful writing, it should be made an inviolable rule not to repeat. There are pupils in every class who WRITTEN EXERCISES. 141 would spend half their time raising their hands and asking the teacher to repeat. They must learn to get it the first time. Such interruptions are annoying to the good pupils, and detract greatly from the value of the dictation as a class exercise. After the whole has been dictated, a second mod- erately slow and distinct reading gives the pupils a chance both to fill in anything that was lost at the first reading, and also to correct any errors in form now made easier with the context before them. If necessary, a third rapid reading y may follow. To judge from dictations I have seen and those which have been suggested in books, they are usually made too I long. A dictation of 20 or 25 minutes seems out of propor- . tion to the value of this kind of exercise. It would be far wiser to give them oftener and of shorter duration. Five or six minutes of actual writing y time seems ample. If carried on much longer the attention of the class falls off perceptibly, and with that the degree of accuracy is lowered. Corrections ought always to be made in class, directly after, each pupil correcting his own work. This seems pre- I ferable to exchanging papers. It is only when the pupil makes his own corrections that he gets the full Corrections. benefit of the work. If the reading lesson is the basis, then the work of correction is easily accomplished. Any change can be met by the teacher. Other unseen ma- terial can be written on the board by the pupils, either dur- , ing the dictation or afterwards, saving time by sending a number at once. Correction follows by aid of the whole class. It seems hardly necessary to add that simply telling 142 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. the pupils to correct is not enough. Even with the correct copy before them, pupils need the control of the teacher if all the mistakes are to be made right. If the class is sufficiently prepared for the dictation there ought to be very few mis- takes made. After the correction the work dictated offers a good field for further grammatical or conversational drill the teacher dwelling more particularly on the common faults of the class. y^ After these lower forms of written work follows unlimited imitative work which can be graded in kind and character to suit all classes in secondary schools. The various oral gram- matical exercises discussed in the chapters on Further Work. ^ ^ _, . ni i , i (jrrammar and Conversation, all lend themselves to writing in some form or other. Chief among the various kinds of exercises will be the question and answer form already described in the chapters on grammar, and work in speaking. In the first year of the course very little beyond variations of this form d A °^er ^^ght to be tried. Even in the second year this type of exercise should receive a good deal of emphasis. How much will depend upon the average ability of the class. In the first year the pupils will, as a rule, write the questions down from dictation, and afterwards fill in the required answers. Later only the answers need be written, or a simple answer dictated and the fitting question required. This latter type is good work for home prepara- tion. By splitting a short story into suitable questions, the pupils learn most easily the proper way to study a story for conversational purposes. As already shown in the former chapter, this form of question and answer is capable of con- WRITTEN EXERCISES. 143 siderable development. At first the simple questions will practically contain all the answer. Later, the question may be quite different in its vocabulary, or of such a nature as to require an answer of considerable length. Almost from the beginning, if such a book as Thomas's " Practical German Grammar " is used, the letter which has been previously studied orally can be used as a basis for answers of some length. One has to guard oid^M^teriai against too close adherence to the text, for many pupils try to remember the piece ver- batim, and go to pieces when they cannot recall each word as it comes. This can be avoided partly by requiring the contents to be given in a different person or tense, but largely by more intensive work on the story or letter in question. If the story is worked through carefully, and the old mate- rial, words, and phrases, also worked into it, the average pupil ought to be able to give the contents, in a simple form, satisfactorily. Still another exercise which pupils find interesting and one which avoids mere verbatim writing, is the combination of several letters, or letters and colloquies, such as are found in the above-mentioned grammar, in the form tionwwk of an original composition. For the benefit of the weaker pupils, and to save time, the teacher can suggest a skeleton plan, the ingenuity of each individual filling in the details in a simple form, using only old words and phrases. The ingenious teacher can easily devise other exercises with this as a basis. When the pu})ils have studied the main chapters of Ger- rn?.n grammar, especially when the main types of word order 144 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. can be handled, short anecdotes furnish excellent practice for writing contents. The teacher should make for himself a collection of interesting anecdotes graded in difficulty. When this exercise is first introduced, the anecdote should be read by the pupils and studied orally before the The Anecdote. ."^ . ^ ^ , ^ Simple contents are required of him. Later, the pupil can be given a few minutes to read over the selection himself. After that, varying with the age and ability of the high school class, the simple reading over to the class two or three times, explaining uncommon words, etc., if neces- sary, will be sufficient. This last mentioned is practically the highest type of class work that can be attempted. It presupposes a considerable degree of familiarity with the formal side of the language, a large vocabulary, and a good deal of training in hearing. As a preparatory course to this type of exercise all kinds of exercises in hearing help, more particularly when easy anecdotes and stories read out to the class are given in English, either orally or in writing. If such a book as Kron's *^ German Daily Life " is used in the second or third year, the variations of the general grades I have outlined above : (1) question and answer, (2) contents of lesson in German, are only limited by the Lif ^^^^ ^*^^ powers of the teacher. Imaginary dialogues can be written utilizing the chapters of the " Daily Life," scenes at the hotel, shopping, at the railway station, etc. Examples of suggestive work for American classes can be found in a large number of German writings on method, given in the bibliography. The only caution to be given here is that there should be a gradation in difficulty suited to each stage. WRITTEN EXERCISES. 145 The highest type of school composition is the essay or the ^ letter, to which all the various kinds of oral and written exercises of imitative character lead, step by step. This, freer form ought to be regarded as the culmina- j ^®® tion, and not attempted until the pupil has gained, through the experience of years, a familiarity with grammar, a fair stock of expressions and words, and that indefinite Sprachgefiihl which comes from living oneself into the language as much as time and condi- tions allow. Instead of closely imitating a story which has been studied any longer, the pupil in this grade of work seeks to express his own thoughts in simple form. It is ' still imitative work, for he will naturally only weave into the composition what years of study have made his own per- sonal possession. Hence the teacher will have to see that the kind of subject, and the treatment of subject, is of such a nature that the pupil can draw from his stock of knowl- edge, and will not be required to consult his dictionary for every other word. If that were the case, the exercise would be of far less value for training in free composition than a translation into German of a definite text. How much of this grade of work can be attempted in the rank and file of secondary schools, and when, will depend largely on the length of the course and school conditions. The most that can be said is that the essay or letter form should only come when the pupils are ready for it, that is, when they have thoroughly mastered the lower forms of composition. Each '^ individual teacher must decide when the time is ripe. Am- bitious teachers are most likely to err on the wrong side ; for original composition has something fascinating about it. 11 146 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. As far as personal experience goes, under exceptionally good circumstances, a good beginning in simple letter writing was made at the end of the second year. The pupils, however, were in the last year of the high school course. It is only fair to state that there are points to be urged against the use of free composition to the exclusion of exer- cises in translation. There is danger of superficiality inher- , ent in the use of the former because the pupils Free too early form what we may call a German composition. g^^j^^ £^ -^ -^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^jj^j^^ ^ founda- tion, there is a monotony of vocabulary and construction, particularly in the construction. While such a grade of work commends itself because it gives repeated practice in a narrow field, still there is danger that the real difficulties of German composition will be avoided, and that the pupil will work along too narrow a groove. Face to face with a thought which requires considerable grasp of the medium of expres- sion, he will baulk, and give but a weak paraphrase. To acquire a more complete mastery, the pupil must be taught that while endeavoring to keep his thought simple he must make difficulties for himself to surmount, or perhaps after all it will be the better plan to use, in connection with the work, a composition book in which such difficulties appear. One might also enlarge upon the demands free composition in the higher forms makes upon the knowledge of the average teacher, demands which he cannot honestly meet. It cer- tainly would be better, under such circumstances, to make the well-edited composition book the basis for study of the higher forms of written exercises. Many of the adherents of the Reform movement believe WRITTEN EXERCISES. 147 that the major part of the written work should be done in the class-room and not set as home-work. My own personal experience has also convinced me that this is ci*°^s-Work7*^ the proper way to secure the best results, although some few exercises can well be as- signed for home preparation, for example : formation of ques- tions on a given text, sentences illustrating some grammati- cal point, and notably the essay and letter form. The amount of time written exercises take is more than compensated for by the more intensive character of the work done in class. Aside from the fact that it shows exactly what each pupil can do, not always easy to determine where the work is done out of class, the teacher, at least in smaller classes, can be of greater individual assistance. He can diagnose the diffi- culties of each pupil better, and correct and guide the work as it is being done. If, for example, the class is engaged in writing out the contents of a reading lesson in German, it is quite possible for the average teacher with a class of 15-20 to go from desk to desk, questioning a form or expression here, making suggestions there. In this way a large num- ber of grammatical and syntactic^ points can come under discussion, and it is sometimes even possible to correct the written work there and then. Modern American schools are usually singularly well equipped with blackboards, often extending on three sides of the room. Written exercises of all kinds can thus play a far greater r6le than in the German schools. Y^Qj.-^ It is rather an " art " to do successful board work with a large class, but if once learned, the results are worth the pains of acquiring it. There is 148 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. Jiardly a kind of exercise that one cannot adapt to board work. Moreover work written on the board gives the teacher a good opportunity to do most valuable class-work, as distinct from the individual work I have suggested above. Class correction of board-work is also another important point in its favor. It lightens considerably the labor of correcting papers outside school hours. Theoretically speak- ing each paper ought to be carefully corrected, and after- wards the chief failures discussed in class, making use of the black-board to make corrections clear. But when we con- sider the amount of writing necessary in a class, and espe- cially the amount of time and energy the modern language teacher has to employ to prepare each day's lesson, it is not surprising that many exercises only receive a hasty reading, if read at all. This is not ideal, but heavy programmes and large classes will make this often a dire necessity, if relief does not come from the work done in the class-room itself. CHAPTEE VII. COMPOSITION. Teanslation into and from the foreign language has played, and still plays, a very important part in the study of foreign languages. Almost any elementary Latin book you may examine is divided into lessons, and these lessons con- tain grammar, and then Latin sentences to be translated into English, and English sentences to be translated back into Latin. Modern language lesson books or grammars follow practically in the same footsteps. To judge from these books, translation seems to have become almost universally regarded as the method, par excellence, of acquiring a Ian-. guage other than one's own. The tradition that has been ; formed in the course of generations that translation exercises are not only useful but fundamental is exceedingly hard to break. The young teacher, brought up himself through the study of Latin and Greek and the modern languages in this way, naturally works along in the same rut. He may have experienced the insufficiency of translation in his own educa- tion, still from force of habit, and because, perhaps, no other way suggests itself to him, the method by which he was taught becomes in turn his method of teaching. The result j in time is two classes of teachers. The one class whose j enthusiasm is deadened by the daily routine, sometimes of no light nature, and who are willing to continue assigning trans- lation day after day with no thought as to the good of it all. 149 150 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN The other class, who soon find out the inadequacy of trans- j lation, and begin a search, by all kinds of experiments at least to supplement it, if not to do without it entirely. It is to this latter class of teachers that the Reformers in Germany belong. To the moderate Reformers belong those who do not see the necessity of doing away with translation altogether. To them it is a valuable exercise The Reformers. . i i i . . ^ . . among other valuable exercises, insumcient in itself, but like the various exercises of the pianist still important. The more radical Reformers take as their rule the words of Victor written over thirty years ago, "Das Uebersetzen in fremde Sprachen ist eine Kunst, welche die Schule nichts angelii." ^ Originally aimed against trans- lation into the foreign language, the extreme Reformers have come to take a strong position against all translation. Let us examine this perplexing chapter in language study, first discussing the disadvantages of translation into the lan- guage to be learned. In this way perhaps we shall be better able to appreciate the arguments in favor of translation. The disadvantages we have to describe are of two kinds : 1. Those which are found in the very nature of the exer- cise of translation. One great trouble with translation is that it works against acquiring what we mean by " Sprach- gefiihl," that indefinite something which allows of Transiltion. "^ ^^ ^"^ ^"^^ language to decide intuitively, without the use of a grammar, what is English and what is contrary to the English idiom. This feeling for what is English and un-English comes to us through years of speaking, of reading, and reflecting in our mother-tongue. * "Der Sprachunterricht muss umkehren I'*, Vietor, p. 31. COMPOSITION. 151 The formation of this intuitive sense for what is German \ and what is not can only be won in the same way as far as possible. There must be the same intensive J^^^ " living oneself into the German language before we can speak of mastery. Within as broad limits as time and circumstances will allow, we must make the German language over into " flesh and blood/^ as it were, and this is only to be accomplished by spending as much time as possible in the foreign language itself. As long as it can be shown that clearness and definiteness are in no way sacrificed by it, the more that pupils can artificially be kept in a foreign environment, the better. Pupils come to the German class strongly predisposed to look at the new Ian- \ guage from the English standpoint. For some fourteen years they have been speaking and studying their mother- tongue, and have been acquiring the strongest impressions of their lives. In their study, notably of Latin, they have been taught largely from the English point of view. If there is to be any attempt at inculcating Sprachgefiihl, there must be a decided break with the past. Instead of emphasiz- " ing the English at every turn, as is most surely done in both kinds of translation, it must be kept down to the minimum consistent with good clear work. Instead of emphasizing the importance of translation into German, other exercises in the foreign language, which do what is claimed for translation — only better and in a far better way — must be brought to the fore. Try all we can, however, to fight down the mother- tongue, it cannot be subdued. The knowledge of it that the pupil possesses when he begins German, exercises a tremendous force against learning that language as a second mother- 152 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. tongue. The cleverness of the teacher is shown in control- ling the great stream, preventing it from bursting its banks and flooding the country allotted to the new language. The teacher must make use of this great power, however, wher- ever it will prove to be an aid, just as the manufacturer makes use of the stream to drive his mill by using the power of the water at a point where it will be most effective. Whether the intentional bringing in of the mother-tongue for the purpose of translation is the best means of furthering the work, cannot be settled definitely by any one individual. I am sure of this, however, that time and energy out of all proportion to the gain has been spent in the past, and is being spent at the present time, in translation. It ought to be used sparingly, and under the conditions outlined below. How sparingly, will depend largely upon the resources of the teacher to accomplish what is claimed for translation in another way, namely by exercises which move in the lan- guage being studied. Unfortunately many otherwise excel- lent teachers have not the command of the foreign language necessary to plan a course which shall keep down English to a minimum. It is manifestly far better for them to secure the best results they can, using a type of exercise for which they are fitted. 2. Those disadvantages which arise from the kind of ma- terial used for translation, and the way in which it is used. These last two factors, material and method of utilization, either augment or lessen the disadvantages adherent to the exercise itself. In fact the importance of the inherent evil in a moderate amount of translation is small, compared with that of the manner in which the exercise is carried on. COMPOSITION. 153 Translation into the foreign language ought to presuppose a thorough knowledge of that language. It goes without saying that it also presupposes a thorough knowledge of the mother tongue. It is a process of compari- Abuse of g^j^^ ^^^ hence, for successful work, the things to | be compared must be known. The great trouble ■ with much of exercise writing in the past was that a knowl- edge of one of the elements to be compared, namely the for- eign language, was regarded as unimportant. Sometimes even, notably with younger pupils, neither element was ade- quately known. Pupils were set to put sentences which were but half understood both in contents and form into a language of which they were absolutely ignorant, the lan- guage they were just beginning to learn. The fallacy was in supposing that, with a grammar and dictionary, a tolerable translation could be patched together. Unfortunately lan- guages do not lend themselves to this rule of three method. The genius of the German and French language is so differ- ent from that of the English that a serious study of the dif- ferences in modes of expression is only to be taken up at the end of the course, and not at the beginning. This evil was increased by the stupidity of the sentences which were found in the grammars, and many of our modern grammars are not much better off. Their writers are still under the influ- ence of Meidinger and Ollendorf as far as their sentences are concerned. The task they set before themselves is rather an arithmetical one, namely, given a certain number of words — to form as many combinations as can be fitted together under a given point of grammar. The teacher, for lack of something better, having led the class across this 154 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. desert, supposed them to be fitted for the composition book, and then came the regular composition days — the delight of both teacher and pupils. For elementary work in translation of this kind many modern makers of text-books have tried to avoid the evil results that come from insufficient knowledge, and conse- quent floundering in the unknown, by so con- Sercises. structing the sentences that they shall be close imitations of an original text, and yet at the same time serve as a discipline of sufficient difficulty. The result of this arrangement will be satisfactory provided the preliminary steps have been carefully taken, that is to say, if the original foreign language text has been worked over care- fully in the ways I have suggested above. If, by question and answer work in the foreign idiom and the other alternative means I have mentioned, the vocabulary, the phrases, and the grammatical material of the text, have been made the pupils' own, then imitative translation exercises have their proper place in the study, and teacher and pupil will have the satisfac- tion of knowing that they will turn out well. It is merely another way of working over what has become the pupil's possession by many other exercises. The pupil then gets, by translating, another point of view, namely from the mother- tongue side. Just as each successive exercise in which ma- terial was studied through the medium of the foreign language served to make the material more and more the pupil's own, so this kind of translation exercise forms one more link in the chain. After a little field has been worked over in as many ways as possible, from the foreign language side, this type of work is still left to the teacher who feels there is need of it. COMPOSITION. 155 My own experience has convinced me that it is neither necessary nor advisable to translate sentences into German until pupils have had some experience in the language. If German is not studied until the third year in When to Begin. ... 1,1 1 .1 high school when the pupils possess some maturity, the latter half of the year, when the time comes for reviewing the year's grammatical work, has proved the most ^ opportune. At this stage the chief object is to emphasize the main facts of grammar and to gain a greater degree of fluency, accuracy and unity in the work. Every teacher knows that review grammar is not usually a success, principally because | of the lack of interest on the part of the pupils. The ele- ments of grammar no longer seem fresh, the ordinary scholar thinks he knows it well enough and skims over the review lesson assigned. If the sentences under the various j lessons are now taken up for the first time, their introduction has the desired stimulating effect on the review work. The pupils, accustomed all the year to get at the language from ( the foreign side, find translation a pleasant change. It is after all a good test as to how well the grammar has been taught. The sentences of value, as has been said, should » only contain material with which the pupils ought to be i familiar. Moreover, the pupils should be so familiar with the vocabulary, the idiomatic expressions, and the grammat- ical principles involved, that the sentences can be done quickly and accurately at sight. If the pupils make blunder after blunder, show insecurity everywhere in word and form, they are not ready for this kind of work, and, if it is con- tinued, nothing but harm can result. A few words as to the form in which the important gram- 156 THE TEACHING OP GERMAN. matical and other points shall be introduced. Of late years exercises composed of short sentences between which there is no logical connection have fallen into disrepute. of^+LL^ Still if an exercise in rules and forms is aimed Sentences. at, it is the easiest and most natural way for a teacher or writer of a text-book to take. Personally I do not object to detached sentences provided they are natural ones, sentences one might have occasion to use, and that are worth the expense of the pupil's time. Any other kind of detached sentence is to be avoided, and their number in lesson books is legion. It is easy to explain why. In the first place, the composer primarily thinks of the vocabulary and the rules of grammar and syntax he is to illustrate in the exer- cise, and too willingly sacrifices the rest. In the second place, good sentences are most difficult to write. To write a book full of natural sentences, and yet bring out all the necessary points of language requires a clever man. I know of no book published in America where a reading lesson in the form of a letter or a dialogue is retold, in another form, in short sentences. The suggestion comes from Germany from the study of " The English Student,'^ ^ a most excellent book for the study of English. But here the Enghsh dialogue which forms the basis of each lesson is retold, in the same language, in narrative form. What I suggest would be to go one step farther and have the corresponding German dialogue told again in a simple English translation. However, for those teachers who emphasize the foreign side of instruction by question and answer, etc., the Hausknecht scheme of simply giving th^ contents of the dialogue in the same language will » **The English Student," Hausknecht. COMPOSITION. 157 appear the better plan. For those who still cling to transla- tion and emphasize it more strongly, it is suggested as a means of avoiding the disconnected sentence, and as a valu- able exercise on the previously translated, and perhaps otherwise studied, reading lesson. After the pupils have acquired some elementary knowledge of German grammar as a whole, a number of other exercises can be arranged by the teacher. For example, a part of the story the class happens to be reading can be Furtner rewritten in English in shorter and simpler . form and given to the pupils to put back into \ German, with or without the use of the text, depending upon the kind of preparation required. If simply a translation is the general rule, without any previous grammatical study or question and answer work, the pupils would need assistance of some kind. How much, the individual teacher must decide. For best results, the foundation upon which the exercise is built should have been thoroughly made known to the pupils by intensive work on the German. Although this kind of work is meant primarily to give the pupils prac- tice in grammar and syntax in general, the teacher can intentionally emphasize a point or points, if desirable, thus making it more specific. Suitable German dialogues which the teacher has carefully 1 translated into idiomatic English are also suggested for those { who have time for it. This type requires more advanced pupils and also great care on the part of the teacher in preparing the text and the necessary helps. Dialogues that can be recommended to teachers for the purpose are, above all, the German edition of Storm's " Dialogues fran9ais- J 158 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. Franzosische Sprechiibungen. " ^ There is also an English edition by G. Macdonald, under the title of "French Dia- logues'^ by Joh. Storm.^ Though originally D^aioffues meant for the study of French, the German translation has been carefully done. The dia- logues are usually natural, and are arranged to give practice on the specific chapters of French grammar, a fact that may appeal to many teachers. The " Echo of Spoken German " ^ can be used for this work as well as for reading colloquial German, and at the same time . learning something about life in Germany. After correction and class criticism the bad effects of translation can in part be removed by using the corrected written exercise as a basis for German conversation. In fact, I strongly urge that all prose composition, after Di io°u being translated and corrected, should be used for conversation or for retelling in German. Or a number of the colloquies in Storm's book can be combined by the pupils and a kind of original dialogue constructed. But before this ought to be tried, the individual colloquies should be sufficiently studied by the pupils in the recently written and corrected form. It will not do to tell the pupils to give in German the context of one colloquy, still less to combine a number of them, after simply once translating from English into German. The colloquies must either be learned by heart, or, better still, learned by heart and then picked to pieces by question and answer, and they must J "Dialogues fran9ais-Franz6sische Sprechiibungen," Storm, Bielefeld, 2te. Auflage, 1893. 2 "French Dialogues," Storm, G. Macdonald, London, 1892. *"Echo of Spoken German," A. Hamann, Leipzig. COMPOSITION. 159 really belong to the pupils before their reconstruction, as \ outlined above, should be attempted. Instead of the teacher always making the translation or reconstructing the text, the pupils can profit by what is known as double translation, practised at least as far back as the days of Roger Ascham (1515-1568). In Trwislation ^^^^ *^^^ translation from one language into the other, and back again, is the backbone of As-| cham's method as described in the " Scholemaster.^' One can thus employ to good advantage the written translations from German into English that every teacher, I suppose, re- quires of a class. I do not refer here to translations which occur from time to time to test the work of the class. I mean those translations which the teacher requires the pupils to prepare with the words : " Make the very best translation you can ! " Such carefully made translations, after the teacher has talked them over, can then be put back into the original form. Work of this kind in comparison is no doubt ] valuable, especially for pupils who can handle the language, and thus have reached a stage when careful comparison can i be made of benefit by the teacher. We come lastly to speak of composition books, of which there are so many. I look upon all composition books more or less as a necessary evil in secondary work. Personally I can well do without them, for I prefer, if there BookT^ °^ ^^ *^ ^^ ^^y translation of connected work into German, to arrange the material myself. Still there are many teachers who feel the need of a composition book as a personal aid, and the importance of it in class work. It is certainly more difficult to work out the material ^ 160 THE TEACHING OF GEEMAK. yourself, and the time it takes would usually be found a weighty point against any general adoption of the scheme. For elementary work in composition, and I would include under this head all secondary school work in German, the best kind of composition book is the one based, more or less directly, on a German original. I look upon a book made up of extracts from English authors with great disfavor. To translate such selections into idiomatically good German is beyond the powers of the average teacher, and conse- quently far too much to expect of the pupils themselves. For advanced study, or for private study, and when a care- fully written key can be used with which to compare one's own attempt, no doubt books of this kind can be of great use. It is a question, however, whether the time could not be better occupied in writing original compositions which can later be corrected by, and discussed with, a capable German. Composition books of an imitative nature can be of at least two kinds. The first kind consists of supplementary exer- cises based upon some well known text the class is likely to read. In Latin instruction of the present time much of the prose composition, after the first year, is of this type. There is no lack of material, either, for German. There are exercises based upon "Immensee," " Hoher als die Kirche," " Der Schwiegersohn," and many of the later texts of various publishers contain work of a similar nature. In England the Siepmann series of German and French texts ^ make a special point of viva voce drill, on phrases, detached sentences, and connected prose work based * Siepmann Series of French and German Texts, London. COMPOSITION. 161 upon the foregoing text. It will be noticed that I have sug- gested that the teacher with the time and the desire can do this himself, and often better, because of his knowledge of the immediate needs of his class. The second kind of composition book would be one based directly on some original German texts. If the text is care- fully translated it se^ms to me to offer the ideal composition book. It should, of course, be graded ; the se- SecondKind. . . . lections should be interesting and worth the! time spent upon them ; and they should illustrate different ; phases of German life and institutions. The translation ) should be close and yet not strained. This latter point is often violated. In order to help the pupil to translate cor- rectly, the English translation runs too closely to the German line. It is better to keep to strictly idiomatic English and give the necessary help in foot-notes. With such a book, the teacher has the satisfaction of feeling that the thought is Ger- man, and that when the pupils have carefully done the work they have written something which is German in point of view. With texts taken directly from standard English au- thors there must always be present the feeling of uncertainty. Would a German, were he writing, express himself in just this way, either in single sentences or in the extract as a whole ? Then the point that the extracts should increase the pupils' knowledge of German life is worthy of consideration. We cannot emphasize this point too often in every phase of the German course. \/ 12 CHAPTER VIII. READING. It is now widely recognized that reading shall form the center of instruction in a modern language course, and that all other elements shall serve to further the ends of reading. The successful practical outcome of a secondary school course is that pupils shall be able to read German readily. This presupposes that the pupils shall have read a great deal, and carefully, and that the major part of their time has been spent in reading the foreign language. The emphasis fittingly laid upon reading and interpreta- tion in the class-room ought to make teachers careful in selecting suitable material. The earnest teacher instructs in grammar more or less systematically, partly be- ® t '^ i°f ^ cause the lesson-book is methodically arranged, and partly because the teacher finds it necessary if the grammatical house is to be made of anything more than cardboard. It is far more difficult to systematize a course in reading, and, moreover, there is far too little thought spent upon this important part of the work. As long as the pupils are reading something, what does it matter ? — is often the general attitude. The difficulties in fixing a canon for reading are exceedingly great. It is not to be expected that any one hard and fast system will pre- vail. The personal choice of each individual teacher, con- trolled by class conditions, will always exercise considerable 162 READING. 163 influence against over-systematization. In these few pages an attempt will be made to lay down a few general principles for guidance in choosing suitable reading texts. For conven- " ience, we will consider the topic from the following points : 1. Educative value. 2. Interest. 3. Character. The reading should be selected for its educative worth. There should be as much care exercised in the choice of German reading, as we find exercised in the choice of English reading in good schools. The contents of the v^uf ^""^ German text should be at least as carefully weighed as the appropriateness of the text in other particulars. It ought to be our endeavor, by their reading and our teaching, to develop in the pupils under us as well rounded a view of life as possible, especially the ability to grasp the characteristic traits of human nature, and to enjoy the beautiful in the world without. The read- ing ought also to help in bringing into harmony the thoughts and feelings of our pupils. We should, then, exercise care in choosing only what is best and noblest. Every teacher ought to read widely text-books suitable for pupils of high school age. Only by such study can we hope to do the best for our classes. It is highly important to find out what the Germans themselves regard as valuable " Jugendliteratur," and thus correct our own often too one-sided impressions. In Germany, as in America and England, the market is flooded with trashy stories of adventure that are wanting in the points I have just mentioned. And this fact has led to the ^ appointment of several commissions in Germany to look into 164 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. I the matter. The report of the Yereinigte deutsehe Priifungs- j ausschiisse fiir Jugendschriften/ under the title of " Zur Ju- ! gendschriftenfrage/' deserves notice here. It contains a few essays on Storm, Eosegger, Karl May, and others, followed by a brief criticism, very often not favorable, of some sixty books of various kinds, Belletristik, Spezielle Jugend- schriften, Bilderbiicher, Geschichte und Naturwissenschaften, I Geographic, etc. In the third part of the book there fol- ' lows a list of some 230 books, each characterized in a sen- tence or two as to kind of story, age for which adapted, etc. Some of the books given are not originally German books. American teachers will find this report a valuable guide. One is glad to find in the list many of the favorite stories now read in German classes throughout the United States. A text should be selected to appeal to the pupils' interest. I imply more by the word interest than one might at first suppose. Reading material interesting in itself may be deadly dull to the class, either because it is too mature in thought, or because it is too difficult. The most attractive story causes children to lose heart and interest if the vocabulary makes them the slaves of the dictionary. It seems an obvious point that teachers should choose works of fitting difficulty, and yet a large number of mistakes arise from the reading being unsuitable because it is too hard. The real trouble lies in the fact that the teachers very often do not t appreciate the difficulties of a particular text. The inex- perienced teacher, if he exercises a choice, may be expected to make mistakes on this score, but even experienced teachers often err in the same way. The more German one i*'Zur Jugendschriftenfrage," Leipzig, 1903. READING. 166 knows, one might say, the more easy it is to miss the mark. It is very hard for a teacher thoroughly at home in the language to put himself in the beginner's place; hard enough when the student is an adult, but harder still with a class of less maturity of mind. Judging from my experi- ence, the German-born teacher especially must be on his guard against selecting reading material above the pupils^ heads because of its difficulty. Another cause is either due to the fact that the teacher lacks broad enough knowledge of the subject he is teaching, or that he is too ambitious for his pupils to get on. It sounds grand to say " My pupils are reading * Wilhelm Tell ' or ^ Maria Stuart,' " when the time, they tell you with pride, their class has been studying Ger- man only warrants the class reading easy stories. It was a deplorable experience, I had once, of hearing a class that had hardly learned to walk alone, so to speak, translate from " Die Jungfrau von Orleans." -Slow, blunder after blunder, in a language that was only English in vocabulary, the sen- tences meant nothing — could mean nothing — because there was no thought behind them. The class was not over intel- ligent, young, and in the second year of high school, I believe, and in the second year of German. On another occasion I witnessed a translation of part of Schiller's " Das Lied von der Glocke." It was, it is true, at sight, but it was so far above the pupils in difficulty that the teacher had to translate by far the greater part himself; even the words of ordinary life, quite untechnical, were not recognized. In a high school course in German, even in one extending over four years, the teacher is not expected io do the work of the college; that is to say, the secondary school pupil in 166 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. I German ought to spend the major part of his time in reading I as much and as widely as possible in easy German prose. I have nothing to say against making a start in the study of the dramas of Goethe and Schiller, provided the pupils ^ are ready for them. But, before the time comes to read "Minna von Barnhelm," "Iphigenie/' etc., the pupils , must, by a great deal of prose reading, have gained security ? in vocabulary and knowledge of German sentence structure. The reading of such dramas should be looked to as the goal, and they should be left for a time when the pupils can .read with pleasure and not find it a bore. Pupils who have to read '^ Wilhelm Tell " in the way that they read their Virgil are not ready for it. They must serve a longer apprentice- ship in the study of very slightly graded prose, until the use of the dictionary is the exception, not the rule. The pupils' age and maturity must not be passed by with- out a word. In choosing material for pupils of high school age there is not so much danger from selecting stories and plays too mature in thought, as from keeping Maturity pupils too long on Marchen and anecdotes which are more suitable in contents for younger children than one meets in high school. Of course there are Marchen which appeal strongly to all ages, and these should be chosen, other things being equal. I do not think it is much to be feared in a well planned course, that the classics usually read will be begun before the class, as a whole, is mentally ripe enough to appreciate them. In English the pupils are expected to read, and enjoy because they appreciate them, poems and dramatic works moving in a high plane of thought. The only difficulty I have ever ex- HEADING. 167 perienced in regard to this point of the maturity of pupils j has been in reading Storm's " Immensee." This beautifully- told story has been spoiled for me, once or twice, by reading it with mixed classes who were too young. They were at an age when they found anything connected with love an occa- sion for silly giggling. Read a year later, in the last year of high school, as I have always done since, the classes seem to have left the " silly season '' behind them, and apparently appreciated the charm of this masterpiece. This experience, which may be shared by other teachers, raised in my mind at the time the question as to how far stories in which love scenes play a prominent part should be read in high school work. The concl usion I have at present reached is that in mixed classes . of boys and girls, stories in which love is a controlling factor in the plot, should not be read until the pupils are mature enough not to be silly over it. In classes of boys, stories of the love story type are not to be recommended as a steady diet. In general I think there is too much one-sidedness in the | work read in American schools, too many stories. If one i looks through the lists of books read, in various school cata- logues, and particularly if one examines lists Published. ^^ ^^^ various publishing houses, I think this will be found to be true. A good story is all right in its way ; it can be, or can be made, of educative value, but a child needs more than the story as a diet. Reading material with more backbone in it, something that is either naturally interesting to pupils, or can be made interesting by the teacher, should be more and more added to the lists of annotated texts of publishers, and find its way into the German classes throughout the country. 168 THE TEACHING OF GERM A 15^. Length is another point to be considered under the head of interest. Even if the reading is as it should be as regards difficulty, etc., the rate of reading is extremely slow compared with the rate in the mother-tonerue. The Length. . ° brightest, cleverest story, naturally meant to be read in the half hour or hour, must lose much of its charm if spread over a half term or term. The teacher cannot altogether avoid this result, but he can do a great deal towards keeping up interest by choosing reading of suitable length, varying with the stage of instruction. The beginner, who can scarcely crawl along, surely ought not to be dis- heartened by starting on a book only complete in thirty or forty pages. For him some selection complete in itself, from one to two pages in length, I regard as tlie right measure ; something that will only take him a day or two to read. With pupils under high school age work of even less extent might be desirable for variety's sake. With older pupils, on the other hand, it is easy to err on the side of too short selections, and for the lessons, thereby, to lack unity. The sketches in Andersen's "Bilderbuch ohne Bilder" seem, from point of length, to be well suited to meet the require- ments of early reading in German. Later, when the pupils read with greater ease and freedom, the selections will also naturally increase in length. Thirty, possibly forty, pages, ought to be the maximum length of stories for pupils in the first year of German, beginning in the third year of high school. I should keep the selections shorter still for classes beginning German in the first or second year of the high school course. Novelletten, or selections of this length, serve to keep interest from flagging, because of the oppor- READING. 169 tunity the teacher has to add variety of subject. Even in later stages of the course I think it is advisable to keep to stories, or whatever the work chosen may be, under 150, preferably 100, pages in length. As regards variety, as a factor in the choice of texts, de- | scription, narrative, and dialogue, will all receive due atten- | tion. Simple descriptions of things, or phenomena already known to the pupils, afford an easy way of gaining a concrete vocabulary. Personally, however, I should not advise much description alone for pupils of high school age. The selections in Sweet's " Ele- mentarbuch " ^ of the earth, sea, sun, seasons, etc., I am certain the pupils would find too dry, too much like a cata- logue. Later, after the pupils can read German with fluency, and the selection can offer something new — something in- teresting about the sun, moon, or stars, I willingly admit they have a right to a place. But I wish the reading to be a pleasure, something worth reading, still of such a nature that the pupils will look on the exercise in the light of a pleasant relief from grammar in its dullest form. For this . purpose the simple story affords the best opportunity for successful choice in the early stages of the language. In the good story, the three main classes I have given above may be represented. And some stories will be intentionally selected because of the predominance of one or more of the main points, description, narration, or conversation. In the first stage of reading, a good anecdote is commend- \ able. There is danger, of course, that the anecdote may be too brief. Many of the older ones are so carefully con- ^''Elementarbuchdes gesprochenen Englisch," Sweet, Oxford, 1891. 170 THE TEACHING Oi^ GERMAN. structed that almost every word is important for the sense. As a rule, it seems better to choose anecdotes that are told in some breadth and naturalness for read- The Anecdote. . rr,i i mg. The shorter ones may, if necessary, serve as the basis for conversation and composition, enlarging upon the contents wherever desirable. No course is complete without the study of a short play. The language is, of course, more idiomatic, and hence pre- sents difficulties. How many, will depend upon the em- phasis laid upon the spoken language in the Piav ° German course. The difficulties are, however, easily overcome by the interest the short play has for pupils. A play is excellent practice in every way, and the work of the class is strengthened if scenes, or a whole play, can be given in the class-room, or, more elab- orately, before the school. The study of German poetry in a secondary school course should be regarded more as supplementary work than other- wise. Now and then a poem may be read and learned, and may act as a pleasant change from the prose Poetry. reading. In a longer course ballads and selec- tions from longer poetical works will find a fitting place. How much poetry is to be read will, it seems to me, depend upon the interest the teacher has in this form of reading, and his ability to make it interesting to his class. His ability to make the poems interesting cannot be too strongly empha- sized. It is absurd to read poem after poem without com- ment, and then require a number of them to be rattled off by heart with no further ulterior motive than to see that the whole class has learned the poems, and to correct the more READING. 171 glaring errors in pronunciation. If a poem is worth reading at all it is worth studying from the literary side as well. And this can only be done satisfactorily at a time when the class is at home in the language. The study of poetry should be left until the language side offers minor difficul- ties, and the pupils are free to turn their attention to the thought. If the poem must go through the process of trans- lation the pupils are not ready for it. Nothing is better cal- , culated to destroy all love of German poetry than the daily \ translation of poems into the most prosaic prose. jT The German teachers of modern languages lay especial emphasis upon reading of a historical or biographical nature, as best calculated to introduce their pupils to the study of the English or French people. In the United History. _, , . \ btates the story occupies the most prominent place in the reading course. In Germany the story is gain- ing ground. The selection of too much historical material was found to be one-sided, but, in America, we are more one- sided still. Certainly stiffer reading of historical prose ought somehow to occupy a more prominent position than it does at present. A few of the reasons why reading of this character has not been introduced in this country are not hard to fathom. One of the chief reasons, if not the chief, is due to the polit- ical history of the United States. Its geographical position ^ is also important to consider. The American boy studies English history almost as a matter of course. England is our mother-country, and our history is closely connected with it at many points. We speak the same language, and English literature is our literature. With the nations of continental history it is different. Only now and then in the past has ^) 172 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. our country been intimately associated with France, Ger- many, etc. To be sure our population has come from the Continent, to a large extent, but the knowledge of foreign life it has brought is not great. To the Anglo-Saxon boy, at least, Germany and France lie afar off, and the other countries of Europe are remoter still. In school an attempt is made to teach something about them, but usually only a general knowledge is gained. The situation in Germany is different. Germany's relations with the countries around her, geographically, historically, politically, commercially, and in her literature, all favor the study of the history of the country whose language the German boy is learning. Co-education in high school work undoubtedly is an influ- ence favoring the choice of a story rather than historical prose. This situation is combined with another fact, which we must surely admit, namely that the course Fiction ^^^^^^ of the German higher schools is more exact- ing, the work done and the way it is done is less open to criticism on the score of superficiality, than the work in the rank and file of schools in this country. There is a tradition for thoroughness and soundness of work in Germany which we have not yet attained. It is not sur- prising then to find the predominant position which historical prose holds in the reading in the French and English courses. Another element which must be mentioned in this connection is the apparent difficulty in finding German historical prose suitable for elementary work. There is often much to be said against the language, the dryness, the minuteness of detail, of German historical writers. It seems to me, however, that if we are really anxious that our pupils should learn something READING. 173 of the history and the historical characters of the German people, the difficulties can be satisfactorily met. But I do not think it would be wise to advocate giving historical prose the position it occupies in the German modern language course. Still, there are many interesting chapters in the development of the various German peoples into a world power under one head, and some of them ought to find a place in a high school course. A beginning might be made with biography, upon which the teacher could en- large wherever expedient. Though not history, the " Nibe- lungen Lied'' in some form or other could be used, and with the aid of the teacher made extremely interesting and profitable. Its introduction is more easily brought about now that the Wagner operas have done so much to make the story popular. I should imagine the majority of high school pupils, especially those who study music, are not ignorant of Wagner. Are classes in high school to be expected to read arti- cles or works of a technical character, as a preparation for future study ? Many boys, for example, will later become engineers, architects, chemists, physicists, and Works ° in a school where the elective system is in force, a kind of specialization already begins during the high school years. Without going deeply into the sub- ject, it seems to me from my own experience that the boy with strong inclinations towards mechanics and the sci- ences is the very one who needs, in high school, to have the humanistic studies emphasized rather than diminished. Specialization will come soon enough in the College or Scien- tific School. Anyway, it seems a better preparation to give 174 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. as thorough a course in general reading of German as pos- sible. With the results of this as a foundation, the special vocabulary necessary can be easily acquired. I do not, of course, mean to keep out selections of general interest, deal- ing with science, if there is time. Extracts from the books of some German writers corresponding to Agnes Giberne and Arabella Buckley, might easily find a place in a general course in German. The contents should be typically German in character. As soon as possible, real German, written by Germans, should be introduced, and chosen expressly to introduce the pupils to various sides of German life and char- Character. acter. This can either be accomplished by direct descriptions or, perhaps better, by stories, poems, and sketches of a historical nature which move in a German atmosphere. " The subject of the text ought to be in har- mony with the language it is intended to teach, both as regards place and time." That this is the right view to take, is now universally conceded. Our pupils are not simply to study the German language, they are, indirectly at least, to learn of Germans, German life, customs, ideals. No better way can be found than by choosing stories which deal with modern German life, and historical selections that deal with important events in the life of the German people. In German schools a great deal of emphasis is laid upon instruction in the so-called " Eealien " in modern language work. Since the time when Klinghardt pointed out at the first Neuphilologentag at Hanover in 1886, that little had yet been done towards teaching " Realien," a great deal of READINa. 175 progress has been made. Many books have been written for the use of classes, and the manner in which the work is being given is well illustrated by Walter in " Englisch nach dem Frankfurter Keformplan," and Klinghardt in " Drei weitere Jahre Erfahrungen.'^ ^ Hausknecht's books, " The English Student, Lehrbuch zur Einfiihrung in die Englische Sprache und Landeskunde,'' and the ^* English Reader " are also important. A glance at the titles of the series of French and English texts under the editorship of Bahlsen and Hengesbach, also gives an idea of the direction the movement has taken.^ Our conditions do not warrant our adopting any such elaborate scheme of instruction in " E-eal- ien " of a foreign people and country. The only thing that I advise is that the material shall be thoroughly German in j contents and feeling. Having^pi)ken of the inner form and contehTofllie read- ing, we are now ready to say a word or two witbu regard to ^ the outer form. In other words, a few words about the \ reader, as against the single text, especially in '"' R^ader^"^ the earlier stages of the language. In the j very beginning of the course a lesson book or grammar containing suitable material for reading is undoubt- edly the best thing. The selections should not be loosely put into the book, simply to be read, but, rather, the whole of the grammatical, conversational, and composition work should be built up around it. The selections should form, as I said before, the center. An excellent example of what 1 "Drei weitere Jahre Erfahrungen," Klinghardt, Marburg, 1892. 2 **Schulbibliothek franzosischer und englischer Prosaschriften aus der neueren Zeit. Mit besonderer Beriicksichtigung der Forderungen der neuen Lehrplane," L. Bahlsen & J. Hengesbach, Berlin. 176 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. I mean, in this one particular, is Thomas's " German Gram- mar." Soon, especially with pupils beginning late in the high school course, the selection of reader or text presents itself. The work in the lesson book progresses slowly, the older pupils soon need outside practice in reading. The reading in the lesson book is w^hat the Germans call " statarisch," the new reading will be " cursorisch " in treatment. I have come to think that the choice of the two forms, reader or single text, is almost wholly a personal one. It depends upon whether one is willing to take the selections of others, or prefers to make one's own. I have never found a reader that entirely suited me, for there seemed always something to object to, as well as something of which to approve, in every one. It would be a more than herculean task to please every one in such a potpourri as a reader must necessarily be. It is easy to see from this that I prefer to search for suitable material myself. On the other hand, there is much to be said in favor of the reading book, in spite of the fact that there are many who do not like the idea. A good reader is bound to contain a large amount of matter of varied interest, is graded in point of difficulty (unfortunately usually too rapidly for younger pupils), and also in length. Another strong claim is that, as a rule, they are more carefully edited. As they are intended for beginners, the notes are full (too full at times) and the vocabulary more complete than in the simple text. No reader that exists in America meets the requirements I set, nor is adapted to the use I wish to make of it. Some may object to the word " reader " as applied to such a book. After the lesson book has been intensively studied and the READING. 177 reading material and the exercises based on the reading have been bred into the blood, I need a book, reader in form, with which to continue. The selections should The Ideal |^^ ^^ varied length, difficulty, style, and con- tents. They should be chosen, in addition to their educative value, to give as complete a knowledge of Germany and the Germans as possible. The selections should also be chosen with the idea of forming excellent material, both in form and contents, for exercises in conver- sation and composition. Such a collection would form the basis for an intensive study of reading, as contrasted with the stories and other work which would afford parallel, rapid reading. It should occupy an intermediate position between grammar on the one hand, and the reading of authors on the other. It should be of such a character and of such dimen- sions that it can, like the grammar, be used throughout the whole course, supplementing though not supplanting the reading of authors. In this connection Hausknecht's books are worthy of careful examination. The reader will, natur- ally, contain a word list. Shall notes be in German, or English ? An answer to this question depends upon one's position as regards the question of translation in general. In Germany there are a number of excellent teachers who believe in no the^ext translation, or scarcely any. Interpretation, wherever necessary, is done through the medium of the language the class is studying. We should naturally expect then that edited texts would contain explan- ations, linguistic and otherwise, in the same language. The question of the study of the text will be discussed in the next 13 178 THE TEACHINa OF GERMAN. chapter. Shall the text read in connection with the reader or after it, also be edited with notes and vocabulary, or is it bet- ter at this stage of the course to leave out the special vocabu- lary, and make the pupils consult the German dictionary ? A text certainly needs to be provided with the necessary notes, adapted to the age and the time when the text is intended to be read. The notes should be concise, to the point, with- out taking too much for granted, or treating the high school pupil as a child of six or seven as regards general informa- tion. Their great use is to help pupils over difficult places, to explain the uncommon and idiomatic in an otherwise appropriate text. Anything else is extraneous matter, and only serves as a temptation to the teacher to make too much of the explanations. Some teachers seem to think that the notes must be learned above all other things. Without neglecting what is necessary for the understanding of the text, both from the linguistic and the interpretive standpoint, the teacher will find, in general, that the pupils will have enough to do with mastering the common, without torment- ing them with the rare and often unimportant. As regards a special vocabulary, there are at least two points in favor of its use. Firstly, it saves time. This is an obvious fact and there is no need to dwell upon it. Secondly, the conditions are favorable for the The Special pupils to acquire a firmer, clearer grasp of vocabulary. Instead of searching, in his inex- perience, among a number of meanings and being finally uncertain which is the right one, he finds in the vocabulary only the appropriate meaning, or perhaps the usual meaning of the word followed, if necessary, by the suitable translation READING. 179 of the German word or phrase. The student obtains a firmer, clearer grasp because the German word is associated with one or two meanings only. For though one finally chooses from the long list of meanings in the dictionary the one apparently suitable, the beginner's inexperience in the language often causes him to be uncertain that he has selected the right meaning. By reading the texts of different auth- ors with the aid of the special vocabulary, the common vocabulary not only increases in size, but also each word in it gradually takes on a richer and fuller significance. The same words appear in different contexts, and the different authors that the pupils read use them often with slightly different shades of meaning. Thus in time a sound vocabu- lary is built up, and the special vocabulary is one of the aids that can be brought to bear in accomplishing this end. Later, however, the dictionary should take its place. Aided by his experience in the language, and sure of the common meanings of a large stock of words, the pupil is enabled by the use of the dictionary to gather together the different meanings of words, and the study of the vocabulary is thereby placed upon a higher plane. The objection that the special vocabulary makes the work too easy for the pupil, I hardly think a valid one. The pupil still has to search for unknown words in the back of the book, and this alone requires thought and care. Anyway, the pupils will have enough to do in the elementary work after the words have been looked up, to satisfy the careful teacher. We are now in a position, after dealing with the general subject of reading, to plan out a course in it as far as possible in keeping with the principles laid down in the foregoing 180 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. pages. The difficulties to overcome are not few. The work done in the various high schools and academies is so differ- ent in grade and nature, some giving four a cour^sr^^ years to the study, others three, two, and one. The hours a week vary also with different institutions. It is obvious that the kind of reading, to say nothing of the manner of its study, that is suitable for high school pupils beginning German in the third year, would be unsuitable for younger pupils of the first year. Previous study of Latin also exerts an influence on the type of work that can be attempted. We shall have to plan a course possessing considerable freedom in its organization. We shall also do best by suggesting a good deal of material to choose from, with the hope that " wer vieles bringt, wird manchem etwas bringen.^' The ideal lesson-book for high school work beginning with the entering class, as I have already said, ought to contain suitable and ample material for the year's reading organically connected with the requisite grammatical work. First Year. _ ^ .. . , , . . , In addition to the obvious requirements due to grading, etc., the subject-matter should offer a glimpse of something German. The selections in the Becker grammar ^ or the series of letters in the Thomas grammar ^ are among the best examples I know viewed from this last standpoint. But if the text-book chosen does not contain sufficient read- ing material, I suggest the following choice instead of the reader, which, however, some teachers after all prefer. Such a book as " Gliick auf " by Clara Wenkebach and Margarethe * Chicago, Scott Foresman. 2 New York, Holt. READING. 181 Miiller or judicious selections from the very usable book ^ " Studien und Plaudereien " by Stern could be early intro- duced to supplement the text of the lesson-book. If proper facilities and time are at the teacher's disposal I should ad- vise compiling a number of popular legends, myths, stories of cities and of historical characters. The numerous school readers used in Germany offer a wealth of material from which to choose. Later in the year as occasion demands, some short stories like Leander's " Traumereien '' furnish excellent material. Additional stories for first year : " Es war Einmal," stories by Baumbach and Wildenbruch,^ " Kleine Geschichten,'' Yolkmann, " Im Zwielicht," Baumbach. Among the easier selections suitable for the second year I- should place Gerstacker's "Germelshausen." Hauff is an ex- cellent story-teller atid his " Der Zwergmise " is appropriate at this stage and can be made more interesting: Second Year. . ^ . . still to the class if a well illustrated edition like that of Walter Tiemann,^ is in the teacher's pos- session. In fact the use of artistically illustrated, often inexpensive, editions in connection with the class-work seems to be highly desirable. At least one of RiehFs^^ Novellen '' such as "Burg Neideck," "Der Fluch der Schonheit" and others that have been edited ought to find a place on the list of the second year, to be read near the end or at the be- ginning of the third year. For another truly German story I suggest " Das edle Blut " by Wildenbruch. Short, easy, modern, and at the same time suitable plays for schools are difficult to find. It is scarcely necessary to mention the ones » Am. Bk. Co. * Seemann, Leipzig. 182 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. usually read, such as " Eigensinn '^ and " Der Prozess," by Benedix, " Einer muss heiraten ! " by Wilhelmi, and others of similar calibre. They are unsatisfactory, but I cannot suggest anything better. " Unter vier Augen," by Fulda, I fear is too grown up for the younger high school pupils. " Immensee," and the perhaps equally good " Pole Poppen- spaler '' by Storm from the point of view of difficulty, find a place in the second year texts. The first named has long been a favorite with teachers, and justly so from their mature standpoint. Is it a favorite with young pupils of the high school ? I fear that they do not know enough about the German language, enough about the Germans, nor are they mature enough to appreciate the delicacy with which the simple story is told. It is not until later in life that the American boy or girl likes Storm, and even then some will not understand. I should prefer, then, to keep these stories for as late in the course as possible, and then assign them either for private reading in the fourth year, or take them up in class, reading them quickly — much as one reads an English story. They might serve as sight reading, though not necessarily to be translated, and the literary qualities could be briefly discussed. Petersen's " Prinzessin Use" is an- other bit of prose-poetry that might well be put in the same class. The writings of Peter Rosegger also furnish whole- some reading, and are an excellent contrast to Storm's stories. A number of his short stories have already been edited for school use, and the collection in three parts under the title " Als ich noch der Waldbauernbub war " issued by the Hamburger Priifungsausschuss fiir Jugendschriften con- tains a very good selection. His work too might serve for READING. 183 rapid reading in the fourth year. It is good practice to have something on hand from which to read to the class an odd five minutes now and then. Some of the pranks of Till Eulenspiegel related in an easy modern form I suggest for use in the second year. There is an edition of moderate price illustrated by the artist of Hauff^s " Der Zwergnase " mentioned above. For the third year the teacher could dip here and there into a modern version of Grimmels- hausen^s " Simplicius Simplicissimus." Further material for this year: " Krambambuli/' Ebner-Eschenbach ; "Fritz auf Ferien," Arnold; "Inkognito," Groller, and "Cand. phil. Lauschmann/' Albersdorf.^ For class reading in the third year I should put early Baumbach's "Der Schwiegersohn.'' It is by no means a story of very high merit, but it is thoroughly German in atmosphere, is bright, and contains enough inci- dent to appeal to the average class. SeidePs " Leberecht Hiihnchen " is likewise German in spirit, though possibly the hero is too odd a character to appeal to a class of American pupils as highly as he deserves. At any rate, it needs careful study of the language and a good teacher to interpret such a unique, though true, type of personality. The most literary writer of the soldier's life during the war of ^70-.'71 is Detlev von Liliencron. His sketches are intensely vivid and dramatic, and there is withal such a spirit of truthfulness and earnestness about his pictures of the war that I think it well to place him on the list. Classes of boys, I should think, would read his " Kriegsnovellen " with deep interest. I select Kleist's "Michael Kohlhaas" for »Ain. Bk. Co. 184 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. the stiffer reading in the third year. It is a powerful his- torical story, so thoroughly German to the core that it ought to find many readers in the upper classes of high school and college. For those who do not object to a " Bearbeitung " i of such a classic, the illustrated one by Chr. Hamann, as published by Grote of Berlin, seems exceedingly well done. The narrative has been divided into chapters, and enlivened considerably by the frequent change of conversation from the indirect discourse of the original to the direct. Some of the peculiarities of Kleist's prose style have also been modernized. One of Freytag's " Bilder," for example " Aus dem Staate Friedrichs des Grossen," might furnish an alternative for serious reading at the end of the third year — perhaps the fourth year would be a more suitable place. Excellent as Frey tag^s " Bilder " are, I am doubtful as to their appro- priateness for high school reading at all, except perhaps selec- tions from them. They are meant for study, and not for simple reading. Moreover, to get much benefit out of the " Bilder " implies a far greater knowledge of German civili- zation than the American boy or girl possesses. Even the German boy of like age has no easy task to read them appre- ciatively. For appropriate plays there is the deservedly popular " Die Journalisten " by Freytag. Schiller's " Wil- helm Tell " needs only to be mentioned. Further material for this year: " Irrfahrten," by Gerstacker, ^'Kleider machen Leute," by Keller. The reading of the fourth year could be selected from portions of Scheffel's « Ekkehard," or Freytag's " Soil und Haben," or possibly Sudermann's " Frau Sorge.'^ If abbre- viated texts are to be used in high school the suggestion READING. 186 made by Dr. Bahlsen in the Teachers College Record for May, 1903, of including some of Fontanels writings is an excellent one. " Vor dem Sturm" has already appeared in the Siepmann German series. ^ Personally I dislike cutting down novels to such an ex- tent as is necessary for secondary work. Would it not be better on the whole to select a number of shorter complete stories, even though they were easy reading for the class ? For mature classes a story like "Anfang und Ende,'' by' Heyse, or the works of Storm given above are appropriate. To these may be added his " In St. Jiirgen," Ebner-Eschen- bach's " Die Freiherren von Gemperlein," Chamisso's " Peter Schlemihl,'^ Fouque's " Undine," Heine's " Die Harzreise." For more serious prose reading, portions of Goethe's " Dich- tung und Wahrheit," for example, the Sesenheim period, as suggested by the committee of twelve. For the Goethe play I should select <^ Iphigenie," in spite of its Greek subject. Schiller's " Wallenstein's Lager " and " Wallenstein's Tod" could be read in connection with appropriate portions of the " Geschichte des dreissigjahrigen Krieges." Thus far I have not included the reading of poetry. I should put off any definite study of poetry until the third year of a four years' course. Then an anthology of suit- Poetry ^^^^ lyrics, ballads, etc., could form one book of the year. It is not necessary to specify here the several collections that have been edited. In the fourth year the pupils could take either " Das Lied von der Glocke" or "Hermann und Dorothea" for seri- ous study. ' Macmillan. 186 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. I have already suggested that there should be supple- mentary reading chosen to give as vivid a picture of German life as our limited time and opportunities will admit, and which will also serve as a basis for much of Bealien. i i • the work m conversation. In addition to the books by Hausknecht, " The English Student ^' and " Eng- lish Reader," I wish to draw attention to the more recent book issued for French schools, "Deutsches Lesebuch fur Quarta und Tertia" by Schweitzer.^ It is of the nature of a guide-book, compiled for school use. Both the Haus- knecht and the Schweitzer books deserve examination by American teachers. In this country we must glean our material from a number of sources, for example, " Gliick Auf," the two volumes by Menco Stern, " Geschichten vom Rhein " and " Geschichten von Deutschen Stadten,'^ Prehn's "Journalistic German," Kron's "German Daily Life," Hamann's "Echo of Spoken German," and others. One of the most readable histories of Germany, portions of which might find a place in the reading list of the fourth year, is StolFs " Geschichtliches Lesebuch, I. Teil bis zum West- falischen Frieden, 11. Teil, "Das 19 Jahrhundert," Hamburg, 1902. 1 Paris, 1903. CHAPTER IX. TRANSLATION. Having selected the material for reading, we are now ready to take up the discussion of the way in which reading is to be treated, in and out of class. I have already dealt sufficiently at length, in the chapter on pronunciation from the phonetic side, on the kind of proficiency to be gained in the actual reading of a German text, and the manner in which the work is to be done. We can, therefore, confine our attention to the topics that deal with understanding the text, and the further uses for which it is adapted^ The importance that translation has assumed in modern language work, is, to a great extent, traditional. When German and French began to be studied as school subjects there was already a highly developed method ra ition .^ ^^^q study of the classics, the main elements Translation. •/ ^ of which method were slavishly copied. Trans- lation of both kinds was strongly believed to be of great disciplinary value in the study of Latin and Greek, hence, as the same discipline was desired in the study of modern languages, translation was cultivated to an equal degree. In the training of teachers for modern language positions in Germany, for instance, the greatest emphasis was laid on the grammatical and reading side, to the neglect of a practical command of the language. Thus their knowledge was narrow and one-sided. They were well equipped to work 187 188 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. in translation, but quite unfitted to work where translation was to be avoided as much as possible. Necessity then, the result of tradition, helped to keep translation in power. Aside from this great force of tradition, the actual mechanics of language teaching have helped strongly to keep translation the most important exercise for language learn- ing. In the first place, it is the easiest kind ?f!.^„Yj*J,^ of work to control. To do tolerable work — to Control. good work is another question — only a low power of teaching ability is demanded. To sit before a class with open book, and listen to a pupil read off a passable translation, and here and there correct, does not require any great skill or knowledge. A teacher with only a smattering of German can grind out a lesson beforehand, and not appear too ignorant before a class translating. With a fair knowl- edge of German, an indolent teacher need not even look at the lesson before entering the class. Lack of knowledge of subject is an old complaint in Germany, as well as in the United States. From this it may be seen that translation can be used by the lazy and ignorant teacher as a cloak to hide his weakness. In American schools, where a great deal of work is done outside the class, when, too often, teaching consists simply of listening to what has thus been learned, the assignment of translation is easily and definitely made. Of late years, however, the value of translation, of either kind, has been severely attacked, as being not only un- necessary in the class-room, but decidedly detri- ]?^® ^\ mental to the student of languages. Many of jrXSiIlSlSltlOIl. the Reformers in Germany have reduced trans- lation to a minimum, and claim that the net results of the in- TRANSLATION. 189 struction in French and English are greatly increased. From the very first, class-room explanations are made by the teacher by means of gestures, objects, pictures, and by explanations in the language, making use of old material, of course. Trans- lation is only resorted to to save time, and when there is dan- ger of the class not grasping the meaning clearly. As early • as 1892 Klinghardt^ describes his method of text interpreta- ] tion of " Little Lord Fauntleroy," which I copy verbatim. s. 18-19,^ groceryman : Mr. B., Mr. E., Mr. R., are three grocerymen of our town — cross (the cross groceryman) : making such a face (teacher gives his face an expression of crossness) and speaking unkindly — powerful ; full of power (power = French " le pouvoir '') — store (American word for usual English " shop ") : the room where the groceryman >**Drei weitere Jalire Erfahrungen mit der imitativen Methode," Klinghardt, Marburg, 1892, pp. 97-98. *Hi8 greatest friend was the groceryman, at the corner — the cross groceryman, who was never cross to him. His name was Mr. Hobbs, and Cedric admired and respected him very much. He thought him a very rich and powerful person, he had so many things in his store, — prunes and figs and oranges and biscuits, — and he had a horse and wagon. Cedric was fond of the milkman and the baker and the apple-woman, but he liked Mr. Hobbs best of all, and was on such terms of intimacy with him that he went to see him every day, and often sat with him quite a long time, discussing the topics of the hour. It was quite surprising how many things they found to talk about — the Fourth of July, for instance. When they began to talk about the Fourth of July there really seemed no end to it. Mr. Hobbs had a very bad opinion of **the British," and he told the whole story of the Kevolution, relating very wonderful and patriotic stories about the villainy of the enemy and the bravery of the Revolution- ary heroes, and he even generously repeated part of the Declaration of Independence. Cedric was so excited that his eyes shone and his cheeks were red and his curls were all rubbed and tumbled into a yellow mop. He could hardly wait to eat his dinner after he went home, he was so anxious to tell his mamma. 190 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. sells his things, or where you find the things you want for your money — prunes : from the French word " la prune '' (" un prunier ^'), in Latin : " prunus '' — figs : in German " Feige " — biscuits : this is the correct English word fi3r what our grocerymen (Mr. B. and so on) usually call "cakes/' little things about that (gesture of teacher) big, made of flour and water and sugar, also some vanilla, etc.; they are usually taken with tea, etc. — fond of : loving, a person or a thing — baker : the man who makes bread and cakes, as Mr. E. in Frankenstein Street and Mr. B., my next- door neighbour — liked : loved — terms of intimacy : "terms" = German " Beziehungen," intimacy = friendship — the topics of the hour : the things about which people talk most at a special time — villainy : very bad character — Declara- tion of Independence : = French " Declaration d'lnd^pen- dance " — to excite : German " aufregen " — cheeks ; these are my cheeks (teacher shows his) — curls : most of you have flat, smooth hair (teacher points to his own hair) but B. and C. have curled hair (teacher walks up to these boys and points to their heads) their hair consists of a great number of curls, this is one curl — his hair was rubbed and tumbled into a yellow mop : by doing this (teacher rubs and tumbles his own hair or that of a boy) you rub and tumble your hair and the effect is a mop. — hardly : scarcely — anxious : Ger- man " begierig." The well-known books of Alge ^ are also important to re- member. In this connection. 1 ''Leitfaden fur den ersten Unterricht im Franzosischen, " Alge, St. Gallen, 1887, 2d ed., 1898. ''Beitrage zur Methodik des franzosischen Unterrichts," Alge, St. Gallen, 1894. TRANSLATION. 191 The present position with regard to the subject of transla- tion, if we except some of .the objections recently raised against the work of the prominent Reformers, is well illus- trated by some of the theses presented by the Reformers ^^°^^ ^^ *^^ Neuphilologentag, held at Whit- suntide, 1898, in Vienna, and adopted at the next meeting held in Leipzig, Whitsuntide, 1900. Though primarily directed towards systematizing the work of the upper classes in Oberrealschulen and Realgymnasien, they are significant for all grades of work. 1. Die Unterrichtssprache ist Franzosisch oder Englisch. Besonders schwierige Stellen konnen deutsch interpretiert werden. 2. Die fremde Sprache wird nicht betrieben um daran die Muttersprache zu lernen. 3. Das Uebersetzen in die Muttersprache beschrankt sich auf die Falle wo formelle Schwierigkeiten dazu zwingen. This represents the most advanced position yet taken. Among the teaching body throughout Germany there is a gradual gradation from this standard, dependent upon the individual teacher's opinion of the value of translation, and partly upon the teacher's ability to work out such a plan successfully. To meet these demands, texts are now being edited with notes in the same language as the text. They are written at times by Germans, often, however, by for- German Notes ^^g^^^s. An attractive series is the " Neu- sprachliche Reformbibliothek,'' edited by Dir. Dr. Bernhard Hubert and Dr. Max. Fr. Mann.^ The pros- * " Neusprachliche Reformbibliothek," Hubert & Mann, Leipzig. 192 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. pectus is also out of a new series in the hands of Dorr, Junker, and Walter.^ 1 will give, at some length, reasons for and against transla- tion, in order to make the situation as clear as possible. What shall now be our attitude, in America, towards this perplexing question? More particularly, what or Not to shall be the attitude of teachers who are capa- Transiate? j^j^^ •£ jj^cessary, of carrying on a recitation wholly in German ? It is evident that teachers who have little or no command of the language must do the best they can with translation. According to the Committee of Twelve : " In the majority of schools it would appear that, after the first few months, the study of German consists princi- pally in the translation of German literature into English. Translation is the exercise which is felt by both teacher and pupil to be the most important, and is the one accordingly which is most insisted upon." ^ Compared with the Wendt theses, already given, teachers in the United States seem to be working at the opposite pole from the advanced Reform- ers in Germany. Translation is the most obvious and convenient way of ex- plaining the meaning of a text. It is natural for Reasons or ^^ ^^ refer back to the mother-tongue the foreign sentences we see before us. In class instruction, any other way than by comparison of the foreign with the mother-tongue is beset wdth difficulties, i"Sammlung franz. mid engl. Schulausgaben mit fremdsprachlichen Erlauterungen," Dorr, Junker & Walter, Leipzig, 1903. 2 Report of the Committee of Twelve. TRANSLATION. 193 the chief of which is that the teacher has not the time to teach all the pupils in the same thorough manner, by means of objects, and explanations in the foreign language, etc. With a printed text before the class, and a vocabulary, the requisite knowledge of the structure of the language, and a knowledge of the mother- tongue, the psychological process is comparatively simple. From the teacher's standpoint, translation is the most efficient test of the pupiFs grasp of a lesson. It may be urged, perhaps, that it is not a sure test, that pupils may apparently translate accurately, and yet not K^^*^^d understand the thought of the text. At times, no doubt, this is true, at least that the pupil gets a wrong impression of a passage, but a thorough teacher does not stop at translation. That should only be the begin- ning of the work on a passage, as a rule. On the other hand, the risks of false interpretation from not translating are far greater, even in the hands of a clever teacher, to say noth- ing of the less competent one. The trouble with a large number of pupils is that they do not realize when they do, and when they do not, understand, and it is difficult, except through direct translation, for the teacher to satisfy himself that it is not a partial understanding that the pupils are getting. As far as the correct employment of the words and phrases is concerned, there appears no weakness. The trouble may lie deeper than that. It is so difficult to get behind the symbol and see what value is attached to it. Under the rank and file of teachers the tendency may be easily created in classes to get the drift of a passage, and to be content with that. Such a tendency soon leads to super- 14 194 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN, ficiality and general mental slovenliness in all the work. Accurate translation, with all its interpretation, acts as a cor- rective against thoughtless work by young and immature pupils. The words of Storm,^ quoted by Sweet,^ and the summing up of Sweet himself, are worthy of mention. " The living oneself into the foreign language has also its dangers. One easily accustoms oneself to a partial under- standing ; one does not form a definite idea of the special shade of meaning, because one has not thought of correspond- ing expressions in the native language. It is not till one can translate the word that one has complete mastery over it, so that one not only understands it, but can use it. "In fact translation has much the same function in the vocabulary that grammatical rules and parsing have in con- struction ; it tells us how far we can go in our unconscious or half conscious associations. . . . Translation is a most valuable means of testing the accuracy and correcting the mistakes in our unconsciously and mechanically formed asso- ciations between our ideas and their expression in the foreign language." Translation has long been regarded as an excellent disci- pline in clear thinking. There is no doubt that, under a teacher who exercises the care and takes the time to teach the pupils how to interpret accurately the merpretation. ^^^^g^^ expressed in a foreign language, the pupils in time learn careful discrimination in the use of words, phrases, and clauses. By using the material ^ "Forbedret Undervisning," Storm. 2 ''The Practical Study of Languages,'* Sweet, New York, 1900, pp. 201-202. TSANSLATION. 195 provided in the foreign text as a basis, accurate knowledge of English can be taught, together with flexibility in its use. There are many who not only believe, but carry out the belief, that every lesson should contribute towards a better understanding and better use of the mother-tongue on the part of the pupils. There are others who, although holding that the German lesson is primarily meant for the study of German, not English, find, unfortunately, that the kind of knowledge the pupils possess of English makes it imperative to spend considerable time with the English side of the lan- guage instruction, in order to make any sure advance. A certain amount of translation is interesting to the class. Pupils have often come to me and told me that it was a pleasure to translate. I think there is foundation for the lik- ing, especially among older pupils who have a XUvGlTGSu* good command of their English vocabulary, partly acquired by careful training in translating Latin. Another point in favor of translation that must not be forgotten is the nature of examinations, more particularly college entrance requirements. Whatever grade of examina- tion is taken, translation is always strongly Examinations. . , represented. Whether examinations in which a practical command of the language can be tested are advis- able, or feasible, does not concern us here. The fact remains that translation in examinations is emphasized, and this means that pupils must be carefully trained to meet the requirements. Reasons "^^^ "^ place opposite some of the reasons against against translation, at least against allow- Transiation. ^^^ translation to hold the prominent place 196 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. it used to hold, and still holds to a large extent, in foreign language instruction. Although one frankly admits that pupils in classes under a teacher of French or German, who, at the same time, pos- sesses a fine sense of feeling for his mother-tongue and takes the pains and time to teach his classes to trans- EngUsh. ^^t^ i^ careful English, will increase their knowledge of English and their ability to use it with force and nicety of expression, such emphasis on translation makes it principally an English exercise, and the lesson is supposed to be a lesson in German. Freely as one grants that in every subject, like history, geography, the sciences, etc., good English should be emphasized as part of the training, that no foreign language should be studied until the students have some definite knowledge of their mother- tongue, a good vocabulary, and the power to use it — grant- ing all this, our main reason for studying German is not to get a better grasp of English. We are really engaged in the study of German for the sake of the German. Wherever it is necessary to further our end, we can make use of the English language, but then, and only then, do we become for a time, and for a time only, teachers of English. At all other times we are teachers of German. Walter,* in the book so often quoted, says : " Sollte man aber wirklich meinen, dass die Muttersprache bei diesem Verfahren, (i. e., minimum of translation), nicht zu ihrem Rechte kame, so moge man dem Deutschen, das an und lur sich gewiss einer grosseren Pflege bedarf, eine Stunde auf Kosten des Englischen zuwenden, wie sich ein Gleiches 1 ''Englisch nach dem Frankfurter Eeformplan,'* Walter, p. 148. TRANSLATION. 197 auch in einzelnen Klassen fiir das Franzosische und Latein- ische thun Hesse." Many teachers of modern languages in American schools would doubtless be willing to have the hours for English increased at the expense of the German, especially if the pupils could be taught English in such a way as to relieve the modern language master from the task of trying to teach two languages at once. The foreign language teacher ought to feel that he has a right to teach French or German for itself alone; that wherever English is brought in it is for the better under- standing of those languages, for the purpose of *Geraum^s Sake ^^^^^^ instruction in those languages. The study of Latin, and for those who do not take Latin, the modern languages, has too long been regarded as the right place for breaking in pupils to the knowledge of Eng- lish grammar. Lately the question has been raised whether it is not possible to give a boy or girl the same efficiency in their knowledge of English by teaching English itself Professor G. R. Carpenter argues that it is possible, and I believe personally that it is. He says : " It is true that English and the modern languages generally, have not commonly been taught 80 as to give the linguistic discipline which it is well known that we obtain from the study of a synthetic language. But though this may establish a presumption, it does not prove that an analytic language cannot be taught with similar results. Teachers and scholars are just beginning to under- stand that English is not an unorganized or haphazard lin- guistic system, but is a highly developed and wellnigh perfect instrument for the expression of modern thought. . . Modern methods in English composition seem to show that 198 THE TEACHING OP GERMAN. this is, in proper hands, an extraordinarily effective instru- ment. There is a somewhat widespread feeling, moreover, that the study of English grammar, particularly on the his- torical side, and of the earlier forms of the language, may be so systematized as to yield as remarkable results as has the recently systematized study of English composition. ... It remains to be seen whether the system of teaching the Eng- lish language now in process of development . . . has not a strong chance of supplanting Latin as the most con- venient and effective instrument for education on the lin- guistic side." ^ Translation has a bad influence on " Sprachgefiihl." The only possible way for one's " Sprachgefiihl " of German to thrive, is to keep within the bounds of the German lan- guage. We have just said that translating is n uence on ^^ exercise in English, only using German as a basis for the exercise. A simple exercise in English is negative in its results ; translation, as an exercise in English, is positively harmful for the growth of Sprachge- fiihl. The natural tendency to translate a new language is encouraged instead of checked, as it should be. Pupils, from the very start, are taught to look at the study of the language from the wrong point of view, and in time they get into ruts out of which some of them never climb. Every- thing must take on an English aspect before it means any- thing to them. The German text is hazy and unclear until translated into other symbols. It is difficult and takes a great deal of time to acquire the 1 " The Teaching of English. ' ' Carpenter, Baker and Scott, New York, 1903, pp. 20, 24. 25. 2^ TttAKSLATlOK. 199 habit of translating well. If a translation is to be made at all, it must be done well, in English that will bear testing. If we make an English exercise of it, the Tto^^ ^^ necessary time and care must be taken to make it of some benefit, and not injurious to the pupils. Translating and reading a language are two different processes, for a pupil may read a language almost as his mother-tongue, and yet flounder hopelessly if you ask him to translate at sight. He understands a page of German per- fectly, and yet it is necessary for him to sit down and puzzle over a good translation. No doubt many teachers have ex- perienced great difficulty in preparing a lesson in translation, have found that, after struggling some time over the lesson, one of the pupils who knows a great deal less of the lan-| guage can easily put him to shame. The reason is not far to seek. For years the teacher has been reading German, and has got into the right path of non-translation, while the pupil, on the other hand, has been spending a great deal of time acquiring the technique of translation, a technique which we wish him to forget. At least we wish this tech- nique to fall into disuse as soon as possible, for, if practised too long, it will ever be a hindrance to his really knowing the language. Would it not be better to spend much of the time devoted to teaching this technique, which will only be a check in the long run, in acquiring the power of reading and understanding the original language, a technique wide in its possibilities ? The radical Reformers emphasize speaking the language, and the spoken word is the foundation of the course. The study of the written language, as represented in literature, 200 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. appears in time, as the natural outgrowth of the spoken language. We plunge our classes into easy literature as soon as pupils have gained an elementary knowledge The Extremes ^^ grammar and vocabulary. The Reformers Contrasted. ° •' lead the pupils through the spoken word, gradually, up to the reading text. We are content if our pupils can recognize German words, and can interpret them in the mother-tongue. The Reformers start with a nucleus of words of every-day life, and, through manifold exercises, make each word live, so that the pupils can not only recog- nize the word and often give synonyms, but can also use the word in speaking — of course within a limited field. Step by step with them the preliminary work leads up to the read- ing of texts, and the simple concrete vocabulary used in speaking, can, if cleverly managed, be taught with little or no translation, and if the work is graded the reading of texts can be carried on in the same way. We, on the other hand, handicapped by time, plunge into reading after a short gram- mar course. We start from the very first by emphasizing the English side, so that when the suitable time for reading the text arrives, translation is all that we can do. As our reading vocabulary is not the natural outgrowth of our speaking one, translation, at any rate at the beginning of text reading, is an absolute necessity under such conditions. Some few voices have been raised against the more advanced Reform- ers, as intimated above, with regard to this very subject of translation. It may be that some have gone too far, but, on the other hand, much of our instruction errs on the other side. There is far too much time and energy wasted on this exercise of translation, valuable time that could far better be TRANSLATION. 201 spent in working along the lines of the German E-eform. Direktor Walter is against compromise. " Entweder befolge man die alte Methode oder die neue ; eine Verquickung beider ist fiir Lehrer und Schiiler nach- teilig." ^ In the United States, however, there must always be a compromise until modern languages are placed upon the same footing that they are on in Germany. Pupils pre- paring for college entrance in one, two, or even three years, cannot do the same kind of work as is done in Realgymna- sien and Oberrealschulen with courses extending over six years and upwards. Time alone cannot be considered. An important factor is the previous preparation of pupils for linguistic work. The description of the work in the Mus- terschule at Frankfurt a. M., as given in Direktor Walter's book, deals with the first two and a half years, with six hours a week, beginning with the Untersekunda. In read- ing these most striking results we must, however, remember that a similar kind of French work has been done by pre- sumably the same pupils since the Sexta class, for five years. Latin too has already been studied two years. The con- ditions then are more favorable from every point of view than in any school in the United States with which I am familiar. I am convinced that neither extreme is the right method for the United States. A course in which translation is the principal exercise throughout, errs on the side of Course ^ being too conservative ; the other extreme is far too radical to suit American conditions and American needs. As outlined in a previous chapter, what we ^ " Englisch nach dem Frankfurter Reformplan," Walter, p. 140. 202 THE TEACHING OF GERMAIN. need most of all in the United States, is a reading knowledge, the very best we can give our pupils ; all other aims are secondary, and only incorporated into the course in order that the reading ability of the pupils may be more efficient. No teacher who has earnestly tried to solve the problem of translation can doubt that translation can be abolished, as a regular exercise, sooner or later in the course. How soon, r. rn 1 depends entirely on how instruction in the tionbeAboi- language is begun. If English is the lan- ished? guage most heard in the class-room, then of course weaning from translation comes late, if attempted at all. On the other hand, if the course is built up on the plan that the pupils shall hear and use the foreign language as much as possible, translation as a regular class exercise can be dispensed with from the very first. Whether this is advisable for all teachers to attempt is another matter. All teachers must admit, however, that every minute robbed from English and gained for exercise in German is desira- ble, other things of course being equal. In addition to the more general point of accuracy in translation, a few other points must be observed, one of which is clearness. The main use of transla- Requisites « i mi for Good tion is to test how far the pupils have mas- Translation, tered a definite passage, as to meaning and form. It is to be expected, then, that a pupil who has mastered the text in these two ways will be able to give the meaning clearly in the mother-tongue. If the translation is not clear, it is either because the meaning is only partly understood, or because the pupil has been careless in putting the meaning into its new form. l^ANSLATIOK. 203 The teacher must, from the very beginning, insist that it is not simply sufficient for the pupil to understand a passage, but he must also take the pains to give the best possible interpretation of that passage. It is not to be ^f w°^ d expected in routine high school work, however, that there will be time for any great care in the choice of words, only a fair choice of words, varying with the age of the pupils and their experience with the lan- guage, can be insisted upon. The semi-extempore nature of translation puts anything like a literary production out of the question. Teachers also wish pupils to show by their translation that they understand the structure; they wish a rather close translation, and not a paraphrase. This fact, again, ought to make it evident that the translation, SteuTture^ °^ ^^ taken down in shorthand, would not be ready for publication. There is danger on the part of some teachers that they will take too much time in trans- lating a passage, and thus lose time for what is really of more importance. The teacher must not worry the pupils, and always insist upon having just the word or phrase that he thinks is right. In the elementary work, a more literal translation is preferable. The aim there is to see whether the pupil understands case relations, tenses, and the meaning of individual words. Later, when the class has had con- siderable experience in " handling " the language, more lati- tude should be allowed in the interpretation whenever the teacher is confident that the pupil could give, if required, a literal translation of any particular passage. From time to time, written translations ought to be done ' 204 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. by the class to teach them what a good translation is. This I is especially valuable in the upper classes, where the knowl- edge of both languages is greatest. Before Tran laf ons requiring such a model translation, however, it is advisable that the passage should be given I orally in class and corrected. Then specific directions as to what points the teacher thinks ought to be brought out should follow. As for correcting such exercises, the teacher of the class is the person who will naturally do it, but such work might well form part of the composition work of a class in English. The last point that should be insisted upon in oral trans- \ lation is fluency. As a rule pupils will translate about as slowly as they are allowed. If we except the time taken for corrections, the ideal rate of translation ought uency to be as fast as one ordinarily reads out loud Oral Work. -^ in English. It is not always possible, by any . means, to get this rate, but it is something to strive for. The teacher must begin practically the first day to get rapid translation. The work must not, of course, seem to be hur- ried, but I think my meaning is clear. To see the English words in the German, and to read them as if the page were printed in English, is a technique which must be practised like scales on the piano. In order to best teach this tech- nique, the pupil must understand from the outset that no lesson is well learned in which he has to stop and think of the meaning of a word, or wait for the teacher or class to prompt him. On the other hand, the lessons at the begin- ning must be short, so that the pupil can fairly be expected to meet these demands. To translate without stumbling TRANSLATION. 206 requires that the pupil should, in preparing the passage, go over it many times out loud. It is not enough simply to get out the meaning, and trust to inspiration in class. Such an attempt in the class is sure to be full of " and-ers." There are some pupils who, even though they spend a great deal of time preparing the translation, translate slowly and with much repetition ; they give three or four synonyms for a word, and cannot seem to decide upon the final form in which they wish to leave the word or phrase. Such work must be stopped, if possible, from the start. The pupil must decide before coming into class just how each word, and just how each sentence, is to be given, and he must go over it enough times to be sure of it. If instructions are given early in the course, and insisted upon by the teacher, and no translation accepted that does not advance quickly from word to word, phrase to phrase, the technique is soon mastered by the pupils. Once the class finds out what kind of translation the teacher is willing to accept, the average pupil will meet the requirements. A rapid translation is just as easy to get as a slow halting one, if you begin at the beginning with a high standard and keep it up. The teacher can also aid the pupils to acquire facility in translation by gradually increas- ing the amount each pupil is to translate. At first the trans- lation of a sentence will suffice, especially as only a small amount can be translated, and it is desirable to give each pupil a chance. Later, this is not so necessary, and the length of the passages can be increased. It is a good test if the pupil can give a clear, brisk translation of half a page. It requires better preparation and presence of mind than translating three or four lines. The review, for example, is 206 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. very well adapted for this kind of work. Translation with an interrogative intonation is another form to be frowned upon. It is the duty of the pupils to know the word, to make something out of every passage. If it is wrong, it will be corrected. The manner in which corrections are to be made by the teacher, is also an important matter to decide. To correct translation well is a difficult matter. To decide quickly whether a translation will pass muster, although San^slation ^ ^^ ^^y ^^* ^® *^® ^"^ *^^ teacher has had in his own mind ; to see immediately just where the trouble lies if a false translation is made ; to get the right translation after all with the least loss of time and the least annoyance to the pupil, all this requires considerable peda- gogical ability. As a general rule, the pupil ought to make the correction himself, under the teacher's guidance. It is easier, of course, for the teacher to give the proper word or phrase, but this is not teaching. Telling by the teacher ought to be the last resort. First, the pupil should be called upon to correct, then the class, and lastly, the teacher. With a text of suitable difficulty, and a high standard of accuracy expected of the pupils, most of the corrections can be made by way of suggestion. Often reading the passage to the pupils with the proper emphasis is sufficient, or a question as to the construction of an important word. Above all, the teacher must have studied the text carefully, noted the difficulties, and be thoroughly equipped on all sides. He must, from his knowledge of the class and their previous study of the language, know how much he can reasonably expect of the class as a whole, and individually. He must TRANSLATION. 207 keep in mind the vocabulary of the pupils, and be able to refer quickly to passages where the word or phrase has already appeared, and he must also be always ready with a stock of examples of all kinds. The most valuable work in translation is, after all, sight reading. If the story the class is reading is of the proper descree of difficulty, it is to be expected that Sight Reading. ^i . .^ x- li i .,i n. the majority oi the class can, with careiul preparation, give a good translation. Here and there there will be something to correct, to improve ; but a class with a tradition for good, sound, earnest work, will finish this assigned part of the lesson quickly, and give the teacher a chance to read often at sight with them. After all, sighL readifig. translation at sight, i s a real tes t of a pupiPs knowledge of a language, and needs, for this reason, to be emphasized as a regular part of the course. It gives the ] teacher a good opportunity to secure individual work, not \ always possible when the translation has been done out of class. It is the experience of many, no doubt, that the weaker members and the lazy members of the class receive too much help from outside. In sight work it is possible for the teacher to see just where each pupil stands, to find the weakness of individuals, and of the class as a whole. Sight translation looks both backwards and for- wards ; it is review work and advance at the same time, and it is excellent training in quicknesa and accuracy of . perception. In addition to marshalling previous knowledge of vocabu- lary, structure, etc., sight reading teaches to guess, to see quickly from the context what a passage most probably .^' 208 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. means, even though, at first sight, many words seemed to be unknown. The power of guessing in language work ought to be encouraged. Naturally it should not Teac es o ^qsl^ to superficial preparation of homework, but there is a legitimate place for guessing in modern language work, and the place to learn it is in the class-room under the guidance of the teacher. Sight trans- lating, by encouraging guessing, saves a great deal of mechanical looking up of words in the dictionary. Pupils too lightly get into the habit of looking up words when there is no need. Mechanically they turn from text to vocabulary for almost every word, words they have had many a time before in their reading, and which, with the right attitude of mind towards translation, they know, without wasting time hunting about in the vocabulary at the end of the book. It is easy to see that sight translation is an excellent vocabulary builder, from the standpoint of reading. How excellent for this purpose depends, to be sure, on the manner in which the teacher works. To make a lan- A vocabulary -^^-g however limited the field, a second mother-tongue, requires a great deal of time. From the recognition stage to the productive stage is a great leap. To simply translate a word, or better still to under- stand the meaning of a German word, takes a comparatively short time, and in sight translation is the place to begin the building up of this kind of a vocabulary. Many words we know after we have seen them once. The old words and phrases will be made firmer if the teacher refers to passages that have already occurred in the class reading. The new words must be analyzed, and wherever an English word not TRANSLATION. 209 too remote in meaning lurks in the German, the teacher should not fail to draw attention to it. In fact, the teacher has a splendid opportunity to clinch what the pupils have studied in the language, and to show them how to attack new material. We must not forget the fact too that sight translation is intensely interesting to the average class. Providing the passage set is not beyond the pupils, the whole class is alive, and this means the class is learning. The Interesting game degree of attention cannot be expected on work prepared outside the class. The freshness has been taken off it. If the pupils have studied the lesson well they gain little from hearing the translation given in class. They follow the work, to be sure, but not with the same interest and alertness as in sight work. It is important for the teacher to read over the section to be translated first, himself; in the upper classes, one of the better pupils may, now and then, be chosen, ttw Selection '^ ^^^^ reading often gives the pupils a clue to the meaning better than any other hint. The pupil can then be selected and allowed to attack the material in his own way. The teacher must not be too ambitious for him to get on, or worry him if the first trans- lation is a little rough. If the pupil does not th ^ ° u* ^ seem to get on, a second, or even a third, read- ing in German, emphasizing important words, is often found helpful. If there still seems difficulty, the teacher can find out how much the pupil knows of the sen- \ tence, the compound words can be analyzed, German synonyms suggested, and guessing from the context enoour- 15 210 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. aged. If there is further difficulty, the matter can be referred to the class, or, as a last resort, the translation must be given by the teacher. Of course the teacher must exercise discretion, and not make too much of word or phrase, thereby losing valuable time. The hints he gives must be simple, clear, concise. After the first rough draft has been made, the same pupil will easily go back and give a smooth translation, after which the next passage can be studied in a similar way. Finally, at the end of the exer- cise in sight work, time ought to be saved for one member of the class to read quickly over again all that has been translated at sight that day. In the following lesson, the material will at least be read in German, or will form the basis for question and answer work. The allusion to question and answer work in the preceding paragraph, introduces another use for the reading, beyond mere translating. In the chapter on conversation I have discussed the value of asking questions to bring ft)r^Readhi ^^^ *^^ thread of the story. The question that concerns us here is, how much of the material read can be studied in this way. Manifestly not all. In the first place, much that is read does not naturally lend itself to question and answer. The language is not conversational in tone, and as it is necessary, because of the elementary type of oral work possible in a high school course, to keep closely to the text in vocabulary and form, questions and answers based upon the text would usually be stilted in tone, and sound unnatural to the German ear^ In the second place, we wish our pupils to read as much as possible, speaking is not our main object. And as has been TRANSLATION. 211 emphasized again and again, learning to speak is an infi- nitely slow process compared with learning to read. How- ever no lesson ought to pass in which there is not some intensive study of the reading text beyond translation. A part of the lesson, the review lesson if prepared at home, or a part of the work translated at sight in the class if of a suitable nature, could be utilized for this purpose. Other- wise a book adapted for conversational purposes can be read, so that there will be no reading lesson without ten or fifteen minutes being spent in exercises in which the mother-tongue plays no part. Other exercises for which reading material is adapted have been sufficiently described in other parts of this book. What relation should grammar teaching bear to the read- ing text ? I remember the days when every little passage of Csesar that was translated was picked to pieces, sentences Grammar and analyzed, declensions and conjugations given, the Reading subjunctives described, etc. In modern lan- ^•^- guage work I do not think such analysis is necessary, rather inadvisable during the time set apart for reading. I wish the story or whatever the pupils are read- ing to be a pleasure to them, and not interrupted at every turn by grammatical questions. To be sure, grammatical questions must be asked in every reading lesson, but only when it is necessary to bring out the meaning. Grammar must be taught, and the connected text is often the very best place to teach it, but the reading lesson as such should in general be kept free from it. All work in which the foreign language is a controlling feature paves the way to understanding the text without 212 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. resorting to translation. Exercise in dictation, and other exercises in which the hearing of the pupils is trained, all help. Almost from the first lesson the teacher Elimination of ^-^j ^^^^ ^q» ^j^q review sentences, and mem- Translation. ' bers of the class will translate from hearing. It acts as a relief, as well as affording excellent practice, to translate at least a part of the advance work in that way. The time it takes is well repaid by the results. This reading of the lesson to the class, and requiring them to translate, can be carried on in all grades of the work. At first the teacher will divide the sentence, later a whole sentence can be read, and an accurate translation ex- pected. When the pupils have a sufficient vocabulary, easy stories may be read to the class. At first it will be best, after reading a short passage, to go back and get a transla- tion of each sentence. Later, the translation can be dis- pensed with, and a r^sum6 in English asked for. Still later, a whole story can be read through and the contents given in English, and the story then retold in German, though usually the better plan is to prepare for this exercise by questions on the German text, as I have suggested in the chapter on Written Exercises. This work, which is, in a way, supple- mentary to the regular reading, aids the class in time to dispense with translating everything. With a reliable upper class, a sufficient test of thorough preparation is to ask the meanings of the more uncommon words, and the translation of the more difficult phrases and clauses. An attempt should be made at this stage to make use of the German synonyms the pupils have been learning throughout the course, wher- ever possible. After this preliminary study of the text, TRANSLATION. 213 further exercises to test their knowledge may be taken up, e. g.y question and answer, etc. The highest type of work would imply studying the Ger- man literary text in somewhat the same way that a literary text is studied in the mother-tongue. I am afraid, however, that the large majority of teachers are not able Ideal Study of ^ ^^ ^^^j^ ^ Yngh. grade of work successfully. Moreover, to put pupils in such a position would take far more time than is devoted to modern lan- guage teaching ; at any rate it would lead to over-emphasis of speaking, to the neglect of reading, in secondary schools. An excellent example of this type of study, however, is given by Klinghardt.^ A synopsis of his manner of study- ing a text may be of service to teachers who have the knowledge and ability, and the conditions necessary, to fol- low it well. " Jedes einzelne textstiick aber macht in drei auf einan- derfolgenden unterrichtsstunden folgende drei stufen der repetition durch : a) repetition der zu den neu auftretenden vokabeln gegebenen worterklarungen und, wenn einmal zu einem ganzen satze oder zu einer construction eine erklarung nothwendig gewesen war, repetition auch dieser ; /5) repeti- tion der dem gedruckten texte zu grunde liegenden lautwerthe durch vorlesen ; f) repetition der im text enthaltenen vor- stellungen (thatsachen) durch gegenseitiges abfragen der schiiler unter einander, gelegentlich auch durch fragen, welche der lehrer selbst an die klasse richtet. Bezeichne ich nun die ersten textstiicke des quartals mit den buchstaben a, 6, c, c?, € . . . , so ist es klar, dass ich in » "Drei weitere Jahre Erfahrungen," Klinghardt, pp. 101-102. 214 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. der ersten stunde zunachst nur die vokabeln von a, zu erklaren, nichts aber zu repetiren habe. In der zweiten stunde repetire ich die vokabeln von a und bespreche die neuen vokabeln von h. In der dritten stunde lasse ich a lesen, repetire die vokabeln von 6 und interpretire die neuen vokabeln von c. In der vierten stunde lasse ich a dialogisch behandeln — und damit verschwindet dieses stiick aus dem laufenden kursus — h vorlesen, frage die vokabeln von c ab und interpretire die in d neu aufstossenden vokabeln. In der funften stunde wird 6, welches hiermit nun seinerseits verschwindet, nach stufe y), c nach stufe ^), d nach stufe a) repetirt, neu besprochen wird e. So geht dies regelmassig weiter fort . . ." •i- ^ CHAPTER X. VOCABULARY. The acquisition of a vocabulary must obviously demand a good share of attention in the study of a foreign language. Learning to speak, read, or write, a language other than one's own, is, after all, a never ending study of words and their use as a vehicle of thought. As in all kinds of high school work, we are here concerned with making a judicious selection of material and means. Before discussing the vocabulary from the standpoint of range, we must first be clear as to the kinds of vocabulary, from the standpoint of grade, that we need in secondary school work. For our present purpose there vo^abuiar ^^^ ^^^ grades to be considered : a lower, the reading one ; a higher, the speaking vocabulary. Under each we might make subclasses. It is manifest that the latter type will not only be far more difficult of attain- ment, and consequently, if for no other reason, far smaller in range, but also from the nature of the case it will be included in the former. We have to teach, then, one vocabulary only. The size and degree of usefulness of the speaking vocM)ulary will depend upon the relation that speaking bears to reading as regards emphasis in the course. ^ As the teaching of the reading vocabulary is, after the early stages, more indefinitely done, we will at first confine our discussion to the higher, the productive vocabulary. 215 216 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. For this kind we can build up almost step by step through- out the whole high school course, whereas the Grade^*^^^ control of the reading vocabulary, if we except some specific helps, soon gets comparatively beyond bounds. It is certain that the old way of requiring pupils to learn a definite number of words daily, or of assigning the vocabu- lary in connection with a reading lesson to be prepared before the actual reading, ought to be discarded. The ofUiTword^ new words should, on the contrary, be first presented in a reading text. In the light of the context the meaning of the new word is given more at its true value, and its association with the idea the word represents tends to be clearer, more lively, and, hence, more lasting. The meaning of many words would, to be sure, at once be understood whatever their position, whether in word lists, or in a connected passage, e. g,, father, mother, dog, etc. Other words, however, need a context to show them in their true light. Even if the words in given lists bear a certain relationship to each other, they will not appeal to the learner's interest as the same words would incorporated into sentences logically connected. I do not mean to imply that we can afford to discard learning words singly, or in lists, in connection with the reading, or arranging the vocabu- lary of the pupil, from time to time, into groups of words allied in subject. Such work, however, is not the first step to be taken in the study of the vocabulary. It presupposes that considerable practice has been given in other ways towards learning the words, either by reading, writing, or speaking. Afterwards, systematization offers a good means of review. VOCABULARY. 217 How the vocabulary is to be presented in connected form, whether in a number of short stories, or anecdotes, dealing with a variety of subjects, or in a number of constructed texts each covering a definite field, is not so ateriai or yitally important, providing, in each case, the aim is to teach pupils in a short time a well balanced stock of common words. The constructed text has the advantage of directness, but, on the other hand, it may be so over-loaded with words belonging to the same group as to make the selection void of interest. On the whole, a combination of the two kinds is desirable, texts (they may be constructed, as the letters in Thomas's Grammar) interesting in themselves, and constructed texts of the above type, which, though not necessarily interesting in themselves, can be made attractive by the teacher by means of object lessons. These texts may be regarded as a means of repetition, in a con- nected form, of the various words and expressions that have been taught in the " Anschauungsunterricht.'' The presentation of the vocabulary in a connected form, followed by the reading, is merely the preliminary stage in its study. The second step is intensive treatment of the Intensive vocabulary. The manner in which this is to Treatment of be done has already been thoroughly explained ' in the chapters on Work in Speaking, Gram- mar, etc. In general, any exercise in connection with the study of the language in which the teacher can maintain a high degree of interest and responsiveness on the part of the pupils, influences the acquisition of a vocabulary for the good. If the reading text has been gone over in the manifold ways that have been suggested, by question and answer, by conju- 218 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. gating in sentences, by changes in form, by substitution of words and expressions of kindred meaning, and by written exercises carried on entirely in the foreign language, or in the form of English sentences to be translated back, a great deal has been done towards fixing the new vocabulary. Not all by any means. The old words must be kept from fading from consciousness by repetition in new connections. One valuable means that can be easily carried on in the early stages of instruction is to expect the pupil not only to recog- nize old words, but also to give the contexts of passages in which the word has already appeared. In this way he not only strengthens his hold of old words and phrases, but also learns to distinguish clearly what there is new in the passage. So far we have considered the productive vocabulary in particular. As the pupils' power to read grows, and the time that can be devoted to reading increases, the control of the teacher over the pupils' vocabulary becomes, Reading ^^ -^^^ -^^^^ ^^.^ ^qqq definite. There is not Vocabulary. time, nor is it advisable, to make over into productive vocabulary all that is found in the reading. The pupil meets words and expressions which he would rarely, if ever, have occasion to use in conversation, even if he were dealing with his mother-tongue and not a foreign language. How are we then to build up a reading vocabulary ? After one has gained a good control of the common language and grammar through intensive study of a limited field, as out- lined above, much help undoubtedly comes from simply read- ing cursorily as much as time will admit. Much reading of easy prose gives, perhaps better than any other one thing, a feeling of being at home in the language. The same words VOCABULARY. 219 and expressions, the same sentence structure, occur again and again in rapid succession. The meanings of many words, even without the aid of the dictionary, are in this way eventually borne in upon us. I would even advise reading some books without the aid of the dictionary at all, just to see what the class can make out of them. If done with the proper attitude of mind, such reading has its value. It could be assigned from time to time as outside reading. Reading to the class also has a very beneficial influence on the vocabulary. If suitable as regards difficulty, and interesting, the teacher can count upon a high grade of attention. The eagerness of the pupils to get the story imprints especially the key words on their minds, and al^o other unknown words which the teacher will, as a rule, explain or translate. The importance of sight-read- ing as a vocabulary builder has been discussed elsewhere. The more mechanical means of studying either the speak- ing or reading vocabulary, will, deal with organizing it ac- cording to : 1. Logical categories. 2. Word formation and combination. 3. Kinship with English words. Arrangement of the vocabulary systematically, according to subject, has been suggested as an excellent means of clinching and controlling what has already been worked • over in other ways. The pupils can fairly Categories early start collecting in a vocabulary note- book, a judicious use of which material can be made by the teacher. Here and there, for the sake of com- pleteness, it may be advisable to fill in gaps, for grammat- ical drill, and further work in conversation. 220 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. I do not think it is necessary to put a printed word-book in the hands of pupils, like, for example, the " Petit Vocabu- laire Fran9ais,'' by Ploetz.^ Teachers may, Books^^ ^°^^ however, find such a book helpful. A larger work is by Kriiger.^ There is also an abridged American edition.^ To the pupil who already possesses some acquaintance with German, the study of word building offers one of the most fruitful means of organizing and enlarging the vocabu- lary. German is not only rich in inflectional ^ J ° °^ endings, it is also surpassingly rich in forma- tive elements, with the aid of which a large number of derivatives may be formed from a modest stock of primitives. If we think of the verb " sprechen," * for 1 "Petit Vocabulaire Fran^ais," Ploetz, 29th ed., Berlin, 1901. 2 " Englisch-Deutsches Worterbuch nach Stoffen geordnet fiir Studie- rende, Schulen, und Selbstunterricht," Kruger, 2d ed., Berlin, 1895. 3 ''Conversation Book," Kruger and Smith, Boston. *Spreche, sprach, gesprochen. ab-, an-, aus-, be-, durch-, ein-, ent-, fort-, frei-, fiir-, los-, mit-, nach-, verr, vor-, wider-, zu-, zusammen-sprechen. ab-, an-, ent-, wider-sprechend. Sprecher, Fern-, Fur-, Nach-, Ver-, Vor-, Wider-sprecher ; Fur-sprecher, schweizerisch auch Fiirsprech. Ver-sprechung. Sprech-art, -sucht, -saal, -zimmer. Sprech-bar, -siichtig; unaus-, unwider-sprechlich. gross-sprecherisch. Sprich-wort, sprichwort-lich, Sprichworter-Sammlung. Sprache, Ab-, An-, Aus-, Ein-, Fiir-, Ruck-, Ur-, Vor-, Zu-sprache. — Bauch-, Bilder-, Bauem-, Diebs-, Finger-, Grund-, Haupt-, Helden-, Kunst-, Mutter-, Zwie-sprache. Sprach-lich. Ge-sprach (altes Adj. ), Ge-sprach, ge-sprachig, an-sprachig (leutselig), red-sprachig (redselig). Sprach-bau, -fehler, -forscher, -forschung, -fiihrer, -gebrauch, -ge-menge, -gesetz, -gitter, -kenner, -kenntnis, -kunde, -kunst, -lehre, -lehrer, -meis- ter, -reinigkeit, -richter, -rohr, -schatz, -libung. — sprach-arm, -fertig, VOCABULARY. 221 example, we can easily collect fifty or sixty words in com- mon use, either compounds or derivatives. The philolog- ical equipment necessary for a thorough study of word for- mation cannot, of course, be given in school, still some definite work ought to be done, especially in courses extend- ing over four years. In the last year or so, a systematic study of word building would be quite in place. Even in shorter courses the pupils can be taught to lighten the labor of vocabulary learning, if given even a superficial insight into derivation by means of Umlaut, Ablaut, prefix, suffix, and word combination. It is expected that during the first course in grammar, in connection with the study of nouns, adjectives and verbs, the more common prefixes and suffixes will be briefly explained, and attention drawn, where profit- able, to English cognates. Compounds will naturally be analyzed as much as practicable. It is after the first course in grammar, however, that the most work can be done ad- vantageously in connection with the study of the reading. For the pupils now possess a vocabulary of common words, and some acquaintance with the characteristics of the lan- guage. The practice of getting the class to give orally, or collect in exercise books, or both, words having a common primitive, cannot fail to have a stimulating effect on the study of the vocabulary. If not carried to excess, the -gelehrt, -gemass, -gewandt, -kundig, -los, -rich tig, -widrig. — Sprach- fertigkeit. Spruch, An-, Aus-, Ein-, Ver-, Vor-, Wider-, Zu-spruch ; Bibel-, Denk-, Kem-, Lob-, Macht-, Kichter-, Sinn-, Sitten-, Wahl-spruch. — Spruch- buch, -kollegium, -dichter, -register. — Spruch-reif, -reich, -fertig, an- spriichig (-beansprucht, streitig gemacht). anspruchs-los, anspruchs- voll, be-anspruchen. For this and other examples see ^'Grundziige der Neuhochdeutschen Grammatik " Bauer-Duden, Miinchen, 1902. 222 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. teacher ought not to have any difficulty in instilling interest in this kind of systematization of the vocabulary. The relation that English bears to German is also a very helpful means of securing a large vocabulary rapidly. Again there are great limitations set to comparison between the two ^ ^Relation be- languages. Philology is not a school subject, tween German Any elaborate exposition of " Grimm's Law " and English. |g ^^-^^ ^^^ ^^ place. It would involve too great an expenditure of time, and only produce confusion for lack of the requisite knowledge of philology on the part of the pupils. What pupils need at this stage is a little help to enable them to establish associations between the more obvious cognate forms in the languages. The close simi- larity between many words will be noticed at once by the pupils without any outside help. Other words need a little hint before the affinity will be recognized. Any long, ab- struse explanation, however, is entirely out of place. As an aid to the study, it is highly desirable that lesson books should give cognate forms in connection with the vocabu- laries, and the teacher should, from the start, draw the attention of the class briefly to the relationship as the words appear. It matters little that the meanings do not always coincide. A short sketch, now and then, of words that have a history, will no doubt affiDrd pleasure and arouse interest for linguistic work. If the practice is continued the class can be led to classify, after they possess a fair knowledge of the language, some of the more characteristic consonantal differences. An elementary study of synonyms, or even of words which, strictly speaking, do not come under the head of VOCABULARY. '" 223 synonyms, also has a value as a vocabulary builder. Bur any systematic study of synonyms presupposes a far greater acquaintance with German than is possible in ^ ^ ° high school. To distinguish between words in one's own language, by way of definition, is by no means an easy task. A great deal has been done if pupils can be taught a number of words similar in mean- ing, and some accuracy in their use. We have already spoken of the substitution of other words and expressions,! in the chapter on Work in Speaking. Work in translation offers the teacher excellent oppor- tunities for leading the pupils to feel differences in shades of meaning. The practice, as suggested under Translation, of requiring the whole class to offer various Translation. ^ .. , . ^ JLnglish synonyms by way oi correcting a translation, serves as a means to this end. Translation into the foreign language is another means. In the correc- tion of written exercises, for example, the use of "hoch" for " gross " and " hart " for " schwer," will be an occasion for bringing out the difference in meaning and usage. I suggest here also, that as such distinctions are made, the pupils should write them down in a convenient place for reference. In time, a good number of words can be thus collected. The teacher, of course, should guard against making the list larger than the pupils can control, and also against choosing words for discussion the difference of mean- ing of which cannot be easily made apparent to the pupils. Elementary instruction in giving words of opposite meaning also serves to bind the vocabulary more closely together. -z> BIBLIOGRAPHY. The followiDg bibliography contains the principal books, pamphlets, and articles I have found of help in the prepara- tion of this book. For a more complete bibliography the reader is referred to the following : H. Breymann, " Die neusprachliche Reform-Literatur von 1876-93,'' Leipzig, 1895. A second volume brings the bibliography down to 1899 inclusive, Leipzig, 1900 ; O. Wendt, " Encyclopadie des franzosischen Unterrichts," Hannover, 1895, and the companion volume " Encyclopadie des englischen Unter- richts," Hannover, 1893, will be found useful. W. Miinch, " Franzosischer Unterricht," Miinchen, 1902, also contains a helpful bibliographical list. Karl Breul, " The Teaching of Modem Foreign Languages," New York, Macmillan, 1899, devotes about twenty pages to the reference library of a school teacher of German. Consult also his "Handy Bibliographical Guide," London, 1895, for works of wider scope. For phonetics, H. Breymann, "Die Phonetische Litteratur von 1876-1895." "Fine bibliographisch-kri- tische Ubersicht," Leipzig, 1897. An excellent list of important writings on the subject is likewise contained in the May, 1903, number of the "Teachers College Record." L. Bahlsen, " New Methods of Teaching Modern Languages." 224 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 225 List of periodicals either primarily devoted to modem language teaching or containing articles from time to time. Editors. Titles. Czuber. Zeitschrift fur das EealschulweseUj Wien. Elliott. Modern Language Notes, Baltimore. Freytag. Pddagogisches Archiv, Braunschweig. Fries and Meier. Lehrproben und Lehrgdnge, Halle. Greg. The Modern Language Quarterly, London. Griebsch. Pddagogische Monatshefte, Milwaukee. Hoops. Englische Studien, Leipzig. Kasten. Neuphilologisches Centralhlatt, Hannover. Kaluza, Koschwitz, Thurau. Zeitschrift fur franzbsischen und englischen Unterricht, Berlin. Lyon. Zeitschrift fur den deutschen Unterricht, Leipzig. Schilling. Pddagogische Studien. Dresden. Wolfromm. Bevue de V enseignement des langues vivanteSj Paris. Vi6tor. Die Neueren Sprachen, Marburg. The Educational Review, New York. The Educational Times, London. The Journal of Education, London. The School World^ London and New York. BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, AND ESSAYS. Alge, S. Beitrage zur Methodik des franzosischen Unterrichts, St. Gallen, 1894. Alge, S. Leitfaden fiir den ersten Unterricht, unter Benutzung von Holzels Wandbildern. St. Gallen, 1899. Alge, S. Zur Methodik des franzosischen Unterrichts. St. Gallen, 1893. AUcock, A. E. The Teaching of Modern Languages. Essays on Secondary Education by Various Contributors, ed. Chr. Cook- son, p. 149. Oxford, 1898. Baerwald, R. Eignet sich der Unterricht im Sprechen und Schrei- ben frem^er Sprachen fiir die Schule ? Marburg, 1899. 16 226 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. Baerwald, R. Neue und ebenere Bahnen im fremdsprachlicliea Unterricht. Marburg, 1898. Baetgen, L. Der franzbsische Unterricht. Encyklopddisches Hand- buch der Pddagogik^ Rein, 1895. Bahlsen, L. Der franzosische Sprachunterricht im neuen Kurs. Berlin, 1892. Baumann, F. Reform und Antireform im neusprachliclien Unter- richt. Berlin, 1902. Bechtel, A. Der Stand der Reform des Sprachunterrichts. Zeit- schriftf. d. Eealschulwesen, XYIII., 1893, 257 ff. Bechtel, A. Internationaler Congress fiir den Unterricht in den neueren Sprachen. Zeitschrift /. d. Bealschulwesen, XXV., 1900, 641 ff. Beyer, F. Der neue Sprachunterricht. Cothen, 1893. Beyer, F. Die Lautschulung in meinem Anfangsunterricht. Die Neueren Sprachen, 1894, II., 65-75, 136-151. Bierbaum, J. Die analytisch-direkte Methode des neusprachlichen Unterrichts. Cassel, 1887. Bierbaum, J. Die Reform des fremdsprachlichen Unterrichts. Cassel, 1886. Bohm, C. Das Prinzip der Anschauung angewendet auf den Ele- mentarunterricht in lebenden Fremdsprachen, insbesondere auf den Unterricht im Franzosischen. Braunschweig, 1878. Brealp M. De I'enseignement des langues vivantes. Paris, 1892. Brebner, Mary, The Method of Teaching Modern Languages in Germany. London, 1899. Breul, K. The Teaching of Modern Foreign Languages. London, 1899. Brejrmann, Herm., u. MoUer, Herm. Zur Reform des neusprachlichen Unterrichts. Anleitung zum Gebrauch des franzosischen Elementar-Ubungsbuches. Miinchen, 1884. Colbeck, C. On the Teaching of Modern Languages in Theory and Practice. Cambridge, 1887. Collard. La M6thode directe da«§ I'enseignement des langues vivantes. Bruxelles, 1901, BIBLIOGRAPHY. 227 Daws, T. Bilingual Teaching in Belgian Schools. London, 1902. Eidam, C. Phonetik in der Schule? Etc. Wiirzburg, 1887. Franke, F. Die praktische Spracherlernung auf Grund der Psy- chologic und Physiologic der Sprache. Heilbronn, 1896. Gouin, F. The Art of Teaching and Studying Languages. Trans, by Swan and B6tis. London, 1892. Gundlach, A. Eeformunterricht auf der Oberstufe. Die Neueren Sprachen, 1896. ni., 462-475. Gundlach, A. Unterricht in der franzosischen Sprache an hoheren Lehranstalten (einschliesslich Selbstunterricht). Jahresbericht uber die Fortschritte der Eomanischen Philologie, II., 267- 453. Leipzig, 1897. IV., 4. Teil, 1-72. Leipzig, 1900. Hartmann, K. A. M. Die Anschauung im neusprachlichen Unter- richt. Wien, 1895. Hartmann, K. A. M. Reiseeindrucke und Beobachtungen eines deutschen Neuphilologen in der Schweiz und in Frankreich. Leipzig, 1897. Hausknecht, E. Englischer Unterricht. Rein's Encyklopddisches Handhuch der Pddagogik, 1895. Hausser, E. Lebendige Grammatik. Potsdam, 1902. Hempl, G. German Orthography and Phonology. Boston, 1897. Hengesbach, H. Der franz. Unterricht am preussichen Gymnasium nach der neuen Lehrmethode. Die Neueren Sprachen, III., 129-149. Herrmann, K. Die Technik des Sprechens. Leipzig, 1902. Hochdorfer, R. The Study and Teaching of Modern Languages. Springfield, O., 1893. Homemann, F. Zur Reform des neusprachlichen Unterrichts auf hoheren Lehranstalten. I. Heft, Hannover, 1885 ; II. Heft, 1886. Homer, R. L'enseignement des langues vivantes dans les colleges. Fribourg, 1898. Jespersen, 0. Sprogundervisning. Copenhagen, 1901. Also trans, under the title "How to teach a Foreign Language," by Sophia Yhlen-Olsen Bertelsen, New York. 228 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. Junker, H. P. Lehrversuch im Englischen nach der neuen Methode. DieNeuerenSprachen, I., 105-118, 167-175, 223-234, 275-281. Klinghardt, H. Artikulations und Horiibungen. Cothen, 1897. Klinghardt, H. Drei weitere Jahre Erfahrungen mit der imitativen Methode. Marburg, 1892. Klinghardt, H. Ein Jahr Erfahrungen mit der neuen Methode. Marburg, 1888. Klinghardt, H. Schlusswort zu den Wendt'schen Thesen., Engl. Studien, vol. XXVII., 427-435. Koch, J. Die Wendt'schen Thesen, Engl. Siudien, vol. XXVI., 369-387. Korting, G. Gedanken und Bemerkungen iiber das Studium der neueren Sprachen auf den deutschen Hochschulen. Heil- bronn, 1882. Kron, R. Die Methode Gouin. Marburg, 1900. Kiihn, K. Der franzosische Anfangsunterricht. Bielefeld, 1887. Kiihn, K. Entwurf eines Lehrplanes fiir den franzosischen Unter- richt am Realgymnasium. Mittel- und Oberstufe. Marburg, 1889. Lange, P. Beobachtungen und Erfahrungen auf dem Gebiete der Anschauungsmethode im franzosischen Unterricht. Wien, 1897. Irange, P. Zur Reform unserer neusprachlichen Schulausgaben. Leipzig, 1901. Laudenbach, Passy, et Delobel. De la methode directe dans Ten- seignement des langues vivantes. Paris, 1898. Liittge, E. Der stilistische Anschauungsunterricht. I. Teil, Leip- zig, 1901. Mager. Die genetische Methode des schulmassigen Unterrichts in fremden Sprachen und Litteraturen. Zurich, 1846. Mangold, W. Der Unterricht im Franzosischen und Englischen, 191 fif.. Die Reform dea Jioheren Schulwesem in Preussen. Halle, 1902. Mangold, W. Geloste und ungeloste Fragen der Methodik auf dem Gebiete der neueren Fremdsprachen. Berlin, 1892. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 229 Mangold, W. Methodische Fragen des englischen Unterrichts, etc. Berlin, 1896. Methods of Teaching Modern Languages. By A. Marshall Elliott, Calvin Thomas and Others. Boston, 1894. Montgomery, J. D. The Teaching of Modern Languages in Bel- gium and Holland. Special BeportSj English Education De- partment, II., 648 ff. London, 1898. Miinch, W., und Glauning, F. Didaktik und Mtthodik des franzo- sischen und englischen Unterrichts. Miinchen, 1895, 2nd ed. (Miinch), 1902 (Glauning), 1903. Miinch, W. Sprachgefiihl und Sprachunterricht. Lehrproben und LehrgdngCj 1894. Miinch, W. Vermischte Aufsatze liber Unterrichtsziele und Unter- richtskunst an hoheren Schulen. Berlin, 1896. Miinch, W. Welche Ausriistung fiir das neusprachliche Lehramt ist vom Standpunkte der Schule aus wiinsohenswert ? Die Neueren Sprachen, 1896, IV., Heft. 6. Miinch, W. Zur Forderung des franzosischen Unterrichts insbe- sondere auf Realgymnasien. Heilbronn, 1895. Ohlert, A. Allgemeine Methodik des Sprachunterrichts, etc. Hannover, 1893. Ohlert, A. Das Studium der Sprachen und die geistige Bildung. Sammlung u. Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der pddagogischen Psychologic, II. Bd., 7 Heft, Berlin, 1899. Ohlert, A. Die fremdsprachliche Reformbewegung, etc. Konigs- berg, 1886. Ohlert, A. Die Sprachen als Gegenstand des Schulunterrichts. Die deutsche Schule und das klassische Altertum. 118-131 ; 150-157. Hannover, 1891. Ohlert, A. Methodische Anleitung zum Unterricht im Franzosi- schen. Hannover, 1893. Quiehl, K. Franzosische Aussprache und Sprachfertigkeit. Mar- burg, 1899. Rambeau, A. Der franzosische und englische Unterricht in der deutachen Schule (besonders Gymnasium). Leipzig, 1887. 230 THE TEACHING OP GERMAN. Rambeau, A. Remarks on the Study of Modern Languages. Die Neueren Sprachen, II., 261-276, 1894. Rambeau, A. Der neusprachliche Unterriclit und das Schulwesen in Nordamerika. Die Neueren Sprachen, II., 1894, 534. Redlich, A. Die alte und die neue Methode im neusprachlichen Unterricht. Zeitachrift f. d, Realschulwesen, XVIII., 1893, 198 ff. Reinstein, A. Die Frage im Unterricht. Leipzig, 1895. Report of Committee on Modern Languages. Washington, 1899. Also Boston. Rippmann, W. Hints on Teaching German. London, 1899. Roden, A. v. Die Verwendung von Bildem zu franzosischen und englischen Sprechiibungen, etc. Marburg, 1898. Roden, A. v. In wiefern muss der Sprachunterricht umkehren ? Marburg, 1890. Sallwiirk, E. v. Die Leitmotive der Reform des Unterrichts der neueren Fremdsprachen. Lehrproben und Lehrgdnge. Heft, 18, 1889. Sallwiirk, E. v. Fiinf Kapital vom Erlernen fremder Sprachen. Berlin, 1898. Sayce, A. H. How to learn a language. Nature, May 29, 1879. Scharff, P. La question des langues 6trang6res. Tournai, 1901. Schroer, A. Wissenschaft und Schule in ihrem Verhaltnisse zur praktischen Spracherlernung. Leipzig, 1887. Siebs, Th. Deutsche Biihnenaussprache. Berlin, Koln, Leipzig, 1901. Sievers, E. Grundzuge der Phonetik. Leipzig, 1901. Sigwalt, Ch. La R6forme de Penseignment des langues vivantes. Revue Internationale de V enseignement, 15 Octobre, 1901. Simonnet, E. Comment les langues vivantes sont enseign^es k P stranger. Eevue PSdagogigue, 15 Juillet, 1901. Spencer, F. Chapters on the aims and practice of teaching. Chapter III. , French and German. Cambridge, 1897. Stengel, E. Die Ziele und Wege des Unterrichts in den neueren Sprachen. Pddagogischea Archiv., 1881, 377 ff. BIBLIOGRAPHY. 231 Stiehler, E. 0. Streifziige auf dem Gebiete der neusprachlichen Reformbewegung. Marburg, 1891. Storr, F. The Teaching of Modem Languages. Barnett's Teach- ing and Organisation^ with Special Beference to Secondary Schools. London, 1897, 261-280. Sweet, H. A Practical Study of Languages. New York, 1900. Swoboda, W. Eine deutsche Musteraussprache ? Zeitschrift f. d. Realwesen, XXV., 1900, 1 ff. Tanger, G. Muss der Sprachunterricht umkehren ? Berlin, 1888. Thiergen, 0. Methodik des neuphilologischen Unterrichts. Leip- zig, 1902. Trautmann, M. Bemerkung iiber die Behandlung der Lautlehre, namentlich in der Beschreibung und Definition der Laute. Anglia^ 1878, 1., 587-598. Vietor, W. Der Sprachunterricht muss umkehren. Heilbronn, 1886. Victor, W. Die Methodik des neusprachlichen Unterrichts. Leipzig, 1902. Vietor, W. Deutsches Lesebuch. Leipzig, I. Teil, 1889. II. Teil, 1902. Vietor, W. Die Aussprache des Schriftdeutschen. Leipzig, 1901. Vietor, W. Elemente der Phonetik. Leipzig, 5th ed., 1904. Vietor, W. Kleine Phonetik. Leipzig, 1903. Volkmann, K. L. Die Methodik des Schulunterrichts der mo- dernen fremden Sprachen ; gegriindet auf die Methodik des deutschen Unterrichts, etc. Berlin, 1892. Veyssier, E. De la m6thode pour I'enseignement scolaire des langues vivantes. Paris, 1898. Waetzoldt, S. Die Aufgabe des neusprachlichen Unterrichts und die Vorbildung der Lehrer. Berlin, 1892. Walter, M. Der franzosische Klassenunterricht. I. Unterstufe : Entwurf eines Lehrplans. Marburg, 1889. Walter, M. Die Reform des neusprachlichen Unterrichts auf Schule und Universitat. Marburg, 1901. 232 THE TEACHING OF GERMAN. Walter, M. Englisch nach dem Frankfurter Eeformplan. Mar- burg, 1900. Ware, F. The Teaching of Modern Languages in Frankfurt a/M and district. Special Reports on Educational Subjects. Eng- lish Education Department, Vol. III. , 461 ff. London, 1898. Ware, F. The Teacher of Modern Languages in Prussian Sec- ondary Schools. His education and professional training. Special Reports on Educational Subjects. English Education Department, Vol. III., 519 ff., London, 1898. Weissenfels, 0. Die Reformbestrebungen auf dem Gebiete des neusprachlichen Unterrichts. Zeitschrift filr Gymnasialwesen^ XLIV., 1890, 513-534. Wendt, 0. Encyklopadie des englischen Unterrichts. Hannover, 1893. Wendt, 0. Encyklopadie des franzosischen Unterrichts. Han- nover, 1895. Wendt, G. Die Reformmethode in den oberen Klassen der Real- anstalten. Die Neueren Sprachen^ 1899, VI., 193-207. Widgery, W. H. The Teaching of Languages in Schools. London, 1888, 2ded., 1903. Winkler, A. Hat die analytisch-direkte Methode die Lehrerschaft befriedigt? Die Neueren Sprachen, 1899, VI., 281-285. Wolfromm, A. La Question des M^thodes. Revue de VEnseigne- ment des langues vivantes^ Paris, April, 1902. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. FEB li'-ia^m OCT 9 194^ 2-'Apr'4cJc LD 21-ino?»-7,'39(402s '^F ^3161^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY