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TEACHING OF MODERN
LANGUAGES
in .
LEOPOLD
^mi^^
Leopulu Bahlsen
From a recent pljotograph
THE TEACHING OF MODERN
LANGUAGES
BY
LEOPOLD BAHLSEN, Ph.D.
Obhrlehrer in the Realschulen of Berlin; Lecturer on Methods of Teaching
French and German, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1902-1903 ;
Imperial German Commissioner to the St. Louis Exposition
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY
M. BLAKEMORE EVANS, Ph.D.
Instructor in German in the University of Wisconsin
LIBRARY
MAR 2 1982
THE ONTARIO INSTITUTE FOR STUDIES IN EDUCATION
i
GINN & COMPANY
BOSTON . NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON
Copyright, 1903 By teachers COLLEGE
Copyright, 1905 By GINN & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
55-3
GINN & COMPANY- CAM- BRIDGE-MASSACHUSETTS
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. Methods of Language Teaching. A Historical Sketch i
II. The Reform of Modern-Language Teaching in Ger- many 19
III. Pronunciation, Phonetics, Sound-Physiology, Phonetic
Transcription 35
IV. First Instruction in French and German on a Pho-
netic Basis 47
V. The Analytical-Inductive Method 60
VI. German Grammar as taught by the Analytical- Inductive Method 75
VII. A Reading Course in German for Secondary Schools 86
111
/
THE TEACHING OF
MODERN LANGUAGES
I. METHODS OF LANGUAGE TEACHING
A HISTORICAL SKETCH
The question of methods has doubtless occupied the attention of teachers as long as language teaching has existed. There was a time, however, when there was no dispute regarding those questions which are to-day most generally discussed ; when each language teacher, apart from the slight peculiarities of his own individuality, pursued the same course.
In this place we are interested merely in /oretgn-lznguage teaching; and in our discussion we must begin at a point before civilized peo- ple, in the accepted meaning of the word, inhabited North America. There was at that time in the Old World but one foreign language in the schools : Latin. It was not until later that Greek was added ; it was not until after the destruction of Constantinople by the Turks (1453) that highly educated Greeks fled toward the West, taking with them their language and the remains of their art. Latin became thereafter the common language of the educated, of the learned. Whoever would rise to higher refinement, whoever would enjoy the beauties of the classics, was obliged to learn the ancient languages, — there was no other possibility. And the purpose of such study indicated at once and in a perfectly natural manner the way to be followed — and the means of making the start in this way. Students wished to understand the classics. Without further ado they took up the various authors and began to decipher them, gradually becoming at home in the language.
In the Latin schools Cicero was put into the hands of the beginners. He furnished the model for classical Latin, and his example taught the pupils how they must express themselves if they would be intel- ligible to their learned contemporaries ; he offered the standard of
I
2 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
polished oratorical style ; they could learn from him the diction to employ in their own eloquent utterances, • — in other words, they could learn from him how to speak Latin, The language of Homer — so they argued naively but with sound logic — must be studied from Homer ; hence the Humanists put the Iliad or the Odyssey into the hands of their pupils from the very beginning.
That was naturally at first a laborious undertaking, and the advance discouragingly slow ; but on the other hand no halt was made for declensional and conjugational drill, and the author was not pulled to pieces for the sake of grammar. The student strove sympathet- ically to get at the sense of what he studied ; as the reading pro- gressed, grammatical instruction and perspicuity came to him by way of incidental profit, — naturally not a perfect grammatical structure, artistically put together, not an unbroken, exact knowledge of all the categories, rules, and exceptions, but still sufficient to let the pupil avoid grave blunders in written or oral expression. In addi- tion it must not be forgotten that the men ^ who underwent such a course of instruction — essentially a reading course — assimilated from their wide and intense reading so rich an abundance of Latin phrases that it was indeed the very language of Cicero which they spoke, — ipsissima verba, — his expressions, which had become part of their own flesh and blood.
It was not necessary that profound grammatical knowledge should supplement this. That was not of primary importance. Their aim was fluency and skill in written and oral expression, attained by a first-hand acquaintance with the classical literature, so far as it was then known,
Philipp Melanchthon, the learned friend of the great reformer, — the Praeceptor Germanise, — called grammar ccrta scribendi et loquendi ratio, meaning that it was of importance for the writing and speak- ing of foreign tongues. From his own words one can see that he thought of grammar as no end or object in itself. For him the goal was a mastery of the language. But that in his time scholars had begun to disregard the value of speaking Latin in the class-room can be inferred from the vigorous statement of Martin Luther, who gave school teachers directions to force open the mouths of their chil- dren, i.e. to compel them to speak : a piece of advice that present-day teachers might well take to heart. We too often feel in language
^ Learned women, as for example the nun Roswitha von Gandersheim, whose works were written in Latin, appear only as isolated exceptions.
METHODS OF LANGUAGE TEACHING 3
teaching the inclination to speak overmuch ourselves, instead of incit- ing the pupils, to speak — instead of introducing them to the art of fluent expression. Even in the writings of the very latest educational reformers can be heard Luther's demand : "Not too much drill on rules, — compel the children to speak."
But when the intellectual treasures of antiquity had become com- mon property, after the classical writings had been read again and again, the pedagogues could not withstand the temptation to illu- mine the formal side of these works in a genuine philological manner. Out of the texts were dug the foundation stones of a grammatical structure, artistic and symmetrical, so that finally a dead system of rules acquired independent value. Grammar, which at first had been a servant in the acquisition of language, now too often became the mistress, and beginners in Latin sighed under its tyrannous yoke. It kept its place, nevertheless, and for several centuries held undisputed sway, while the real speaking and writing of Latin disappeared almost entirely. That earlier goal which had actually been reached was no longer striven for. This decided preference for the merely formal side of grammar could be neither honestly denied nor defended, and so the scholars sought to impute to their grammatical activity another and loftier aim. The glorious catch-word of the " logical schooling " of the youthful intellect was conveniently discovered, and with an air of much authority the pedagogues sought to demonstrate that no more elevating, more sure means of mental gymnastics existed than the study of grammar. Philologians of keen and sober judgment came out of such schoolrooms ; but language teaching became utter desola- tion, and only here and there were real friends won for the study of a foreign tongue. These ardent admirers of grammar succeeded nobly in rendering Plato or Cicero heartily loathsome to youth, which in former centuries had received inspiration from their richness of thought and beauty of form!
What wonder then that at last from the ranks of the philologians themselves the warning sounded ever more insistently : " Do not for- get the language itself in the consideration of its grammar ; do not neglect the author, his work, his intrinsic worth, for the sake of an analytical, philological inspection of sentence and word-form!"
Wolfgang Ratichius, a scholar who taught Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and French in Holland (1600) and afterwards in Anhalt-Kothen, was happily able to realize his ideas of reform and to have text-books printed. He pointed with emphasis back to the old times, when the
4 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
student had bothered little about grammatical rules and had com- mitted but little to memory, but when instead an author had been taken from the first hour of study and so industriously read that the pupil soon became familiar with his language. Ratichius advocated the empirical, inductive method, and would have nothing to do with rules if the necessity for their application had not already arisen from the reading.
At almost the same time a more natural teaching of language was demanded by Johann Amos Comenius, who, broken by the storms of the Thirty Years' War, died in the Netherlands (1670) after a long, restless, and roving life. But before his death his Didactka Magna, Yixsjanua Linguarum Reserata, and above all else his Orbis Senstia/ium Fictus had carried his pedagogical fame throughout the entire civilized world. A modern note strikes our ears when in the third book of his Didactka we hear the renowned teacher assert so forcibly : " Every language must be learned by practice rather than by rules ; especially by hearing, reading, repeating, copying, and by written and oral attempts at imitation."
Comenius was the first to recognize fully the value of visualization for language teaching, and in the pictures of his Orbis Fictus he showed his pupils the objects for which they had to find a name in the new language. It was due to the weight of his powerful person- ality that the underlying idea of his World in Ficture won practical significance, — unfortunately, however, only for a time.
Repeatedly language teachers fell back into the errors which had been attacked by the above-named reformers ; again and again gram- matical rules were taken as the starting-point. In desperation Labie- nus, a schoolman of the seventeenth century, exclaimed : " What is grammar other than a drag to studies, a torture to the youthful intel- lect, a squanderer of the best talents ! " And the English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) constantly asserted: "Whoever wishes to read the classics needs no grammatical training." One would have thought Jean Jacques Rousseau's powerful battle-cry, Let us return to JVature ! would also have aroused language teachers all along the line to the employment of more natural methods. But as the other way was easier to traverse, they held pedantically fast to it, despite the discontent of tormented school children ; while the endeavors of Base- dow and the philanthropists to start from observation and experience, to begin, after the example of Comenius, with the Fealien, to discuss pictures in the foreign language, remained more or less isolated.
METHODS OF LANGUAGE TEACHING 5
And what the condition of language teaching was in the German schools, even as late as the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, we learn from the account of Kroger, lecturer at the Waisenhaus in Halle : " In the general course of language teaching a grammar is put into the hands of the pupil, he is made to memorize words, declensions, conjugations, rules (and if possible a large number of exceptions at the same time), to write translations and compositions, etc. After seven or eight school years which include thousands of hours of language study freighted with unutterable misery, the pupil has read several primers and, in a fragmentary way, a few authors, but is often unable to write a composition in the foreign language without mistake or wath any approach to elegance of diction. He can not read the simple words of a historian or a poet without diffi- culty, and for the culture of the foreign country about which he is studying he has little or no appreciation. This study of dead words and forms, these tiring feats of memory, this brooding over sentences the solution of which is beyond the strength of the child, do not con- tribute to intellectual culture, do not create a readiness of thought, a many-sidedness of judgment. On the contrary, the fruit of such a course of instruction, which by a more natural method would prove so important a factor in the aggregate training of the child, is an actual aversion to learning and a dullness of intellect. This method is likewise but poorly adapted to the child's nature : for he has no pleasure in the grammatical importance of the word and it is a matter of complete indifference to him in what case the word Ccesar is ; he asks what C^sar did."
So wrote Dr. Kroger as late as 1833, and about fifteen years later Jacob Grimm delivered like judgment.
In the meantime modern languages had come to occupy a position as important as that of Latin and Greek, even if up to the middle of the nineteenth century they had been sadly neglected. The peoples of the Old and New Worlds had entered into more active commer- cial relations, into an increasing and lively exchange of intellectual and literary treasures. New educational ideas began very slowly and gradually to ripen. But the men who undertook to introduce the youth of a country to the languages of other civilized peoples had for the most part undergone the traditional philological training ; hence nothing was more natural than that they should teach the modern foreign languages just as the classics had been taught them. It was this class of teachers who developed those artistically
6 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
symmetrical methods and didactics of which we can form a fairly clear estimate from the above quoted memoirs of Kroger.
Naturally I can not discuss here in detail the almost limitless num- ber of older and newer grammars whose purpose has been to make foreigners conversant with the German language ; but it is, never- theless, of interest to know that a German grammar for English learners appeared as early as 1687, The author was a certain Offe- len ; the publisher, a London bookseller. The book possesses a purely historical interest, but if anyone should wish to look into the matter more carefully, I would recommend an article by Vietor in the tenth volume of Englische Studien.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century the success of Mei- dinger began to attract the attention of language teachers throughout Europe.
Johann Valentin Meidinger was born in the year 1756 in Frank- fort-on-the-Main, passed his life there as a teacher of French and Italian, and died in 1822. Of him Ollendorff, his successor in method, says : " He holds the highest rank of all who have rendered essential service to language teaching." And Meidinger too would seem to hold his own method in high regard, for on the title-page of his French grammar, published in 1783, he speaks of his "entirely new principle, by means of which one can learn the language thoroughly and quickly by an altogether new and very easy method."
It was natural for these same principles to be applied to the Ger- man language, little as the boastful title of the grammar corre- sponded with the results attained from the study of it. Meidinger prepared the way for a certain advance in method. He was, it is true, without thorough training and with but a deficient mastery of German grammar, but none the less an old Praktikus who, whenever possible, cleverly united the new method with the successful achieve- ments of the old. The classification of material according to the parts of speech he retained, but from the first chapter on he offered ample opportunity for the practical application of these parts of speech and of the rules, in the form of translations into foreign lan- guage. To make such a course possible before the discussion of the verb is reached there are but two w-ays : either to limit one's self to short phrases of no content, disconnected expressions without verbs ; or to offer complete sentences in which everything new is translated in foot-notes. Both courses were adopted by Meidinger, and hence we find in his books fragmentary formulas such as " the king of the
METHODS OF LANGUAGE TEACHING 7
land, the neighbor's uncle, your cousin's mother-in-law," etc., as well as complete sentences like "Of what do you speak?" "We speak of the place and the weather," where foot-notes afford help as follows: "Of what do you speak? =33on roaS rebet iljr?" "We speak of . . . = 2Btr reben oon." What work then is left for the pupil ? He believes that he is translating, while in reality he is simply reading the larger part directly from the book. But still these grammars of Meidinger denote an advance in method. They attempt to treat pronuncia- tion clearly ; they no longer arbitrarily separate accidence and syn- tax; they apply the rules in practical sentences; they even make a beginning in conversation and offer models of epistolary style ; they widen the vocabulary with expressions from the commercial and business worlds, — and thus they seek to meet the practical needs of practical life more adequately than had been the case hitherto.
Meidinger himself could not write a text-book for English and American pupils, as he did not know English enough to warrant such an undertaking. But others did it for him, pursuing exactly the course indicated ; e.g. Schirm, in his book, long since antiquated. The Speak- ing Method, or the Shortest, Easiest, and Surest Way to Learn the Ger- maji Language.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century Jean Jacques Jacotot was much spoken of as a language teacher in France and Belgium. He was born in Dijon in the year 1770, and became successively teacher, lawyer, officer in the army, director of the Polytechnic School in Paris, professor of French at the University of Louvain, and director of a military school in the same city, dying in Paris in 1840. His motto was Tout est dans tout, and in accordance with this belief he began instruction in French with a coherent "whole," with the reading of what in his day was a classical work, the Telhnaqiie of Fenelon, from which he sought to derive all grammatical knowl- edge. The pupils had to read a great deal ; striking sentences were especially drilled and memorized ; after a time similar instances were collected and the pupils were directed to deduce from these analogous examples the grammatical law for themselves.
Many a practical idea which the good Jacotot uttered was admired because of its originality, trite as its phrasing sounds to modern ears: " Join the new to the old which the pupil already securely possesses ! Repeat often, and strengthen the memory by frequent memorizing and repetition ! " Jacotot's mistake was that he did not advance carefully and logically from the easy to the difficult. He followed
8 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
his author blindly, ever and again coming back to the beginning of his story, which finally became utterly distasteful to the pupil ; and his choice of the difficult Tele7naque to serve as the foundation for such a course was most unfortunate : it is no wonder that in the end both teacher and pupil lost interest.
His contemporary, James Hamilton, born in London in the year 1769, believed that he had learned German in Hamburg by a " new and peculiar method." Later he taught French in New York after this same method, and then returned to Europe, where he died in Dublin in 1830. He was the first to edit modern foreign-language text-books with an interlinear translation. Hamilton's plan was to begin at once with a word-for-word translation of his author, and thus without any further parley provide his pupils as soon as possible with the knowledge of a large number of words and grammatical formulas. Then by an analytical method he prepared the way for a thorough knowledge of even the more difficult rules. At the time, this method made a great sensation in America, England, and France ; in Germany it aroused at first lively opposition, but little by little teachers began to follow it, especially recommending the method to such as wished to learn a foreign language quickly and for practical purposes. The same treatment was applied even to the dead lan- guages, and in later text-books many of its evident weaknesses were corrected. Hamilton's criticism of Jacotot's text was correct : one should rather begin with an easy author. But what did he regard as the "very easiest" book that had ever been written in any language? Strangely enough, the Gospel according to St. John !
It may be noted here that long after Hamilton's death two Berlin publishers, Toussaint and Langenscheidt, met with great success in their Unterrkhtsbriefefi (correspondence lessons) by the employment of this principle of interlinear translation. For the starting-point of all grammatical instruction they chose a connected text from nineteenth- century prose, divided it into short chapters, and treated it cleverly for the purposes of private study in the form of letters " from the teacher to his pupils." The pronunciation of sounds is indicated with particular care, the translation is given literally word for word, and the grammatical explanation of all difficulties is entirely suf- ficient. With the help of the translation the pupil reads the first chapters with complete understanding, and his interest in what fol- lows is aroused. At the same time he learns a large number of words and has his attention called to the differences between the foreign
METHODS OF LANGUAGE TEACHING 9
language and his mother tongue. Opportunity is given him in the same " letter " to become acquainted with different classes of impor- tant Realien characteristic of the foreign nation's culture, and to answer questions and translate sentences to which the next " letter " will supply him with the key, — that he himself may correct his written exercises : " Every one his own teacher ! " Thousands have attempted to learn modern foreign languages by the Toussaint-Langenscheidt method, and have really succeeded to a certain degree, so far as a foreign language may be learned without the assistance of an actual teacher. In order to supply the place of this teacher who would pro- nounce the foreign sounds correctly and untiringly, the publishers invented and continually worked for the perfection of a phonetic alphabet which was to reproduce the foreign sounds as exactly as possible. They have rendered great services in this domain, and their enlightened efforts in French, English, and German lexicography con- stitute a page of honor in the history of the attempt to spread abroad a knowledge of these languages, especially as regards their vocabulary.
Johann Franz Ahn, born in Aachen in the year 1790, first merchant, then surveyor, and finally teacher and school director until his death in 1865, had in mind the essentially practical results of instruction. The German public school system finds in him a sturdy forerunner. The main purpose of Ahn, as of his colleague Seidenstiicker,^ was to prepare young people for mercantile life and to equip them with that mastery of modern languages which was deemed necessary for this end.
In their text-books they gave the student at first only easy, every- day words and the simplest complete sentences discoverable ; they warned against beginning grammar oversoon, strove early in the course for a certain practice in conversation, and stated emphatically that the aim to be continually kept in view was the ability to express one's self by spoken and written word in the foreign language. The elaboration and execution of their method fell, to be sure, far short of the claims they made for it. The difficulties which beset the ele- mentary student were simply evaded, and in final analysis their plan resulted in merely continual translating.
1 Johann Heinrich Philipp Seidenstiicker, born in Thiiringen (1765), died in Soest (1817). He was primarily a skillful pedagogue, a fact which accounts for his belief that many an explanation could be left in the hands of the teacher. In the first editions of Ahn-Seidenstiicker's text-books there are, for example, no rules of pronunciation.
10 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
The first to group sentences systematically for the purpose of practice in definite grammatical forms and rules, to apportion to each lesson its well-defined task, and to offer in addition conversational models, was the still popular Ollendorff. He was the teacher of our grandparents, as Plotz was of our parents and to some extent of ourselves.
The quality of Ollendorff's sentences, models of conversation, and " questions," could be illustrated by many an amusing collection of unconscious imbecility. To the most stupid, disconnected, and motley questions are given answers prescribed to the letter which are to be read, translated, and memorized. Ollendorff had great confidence in the use of his text-book : " In six months," he asserts, "one may learn to read, write, and speak a foreign language " ( ! ). What in reality, however, a docile pupil might learn from him, under the most favorable conditions, would be a few hundred sterile expressions which would weigh upon the memory as unnecessary ballast and could never be regarded as actual profit.
More elegant and intelligent models of conversation are offered in the Gaspey-Otto text-books, by means of which even to-day many Americans, Englishmen, and Frenchmen are learning their- German. But what a pity it is that the foreigner does not always oblige us by formulating his questions and shaping his conversation according to the norm which Gaspey and Otto choose as their standard ! In com- mon with their predecessors, they expect great grammatical profit to accrue from the study of themes and translations.
Meanwhile we have come in our historical journeying through the domain of language teaching to the time when Plotz was undisputed monarch of French instruction in German schools. Karl Plotz, the much-praised, the much-maligned, was a man whose mere name is sufficient to indicate a well-defined and complete policy. To many enthusiastic schoolmen he was the standard-bearer about whom they gathered with tenacious endurance in the stubborn fight, to many an impetuous reformer he was the target of most violent attacks ; but it may be said that Karl Plotz was himself almost as complete master of the foreign language which he sought to teach others, as of his mother tongue, — a fact that should never be forgotten in a criticism of this tireless worker. He had studied French where it is spoken best, in Paris ; hence he kept his text-books free from barbarisms, laying especial emphasis upon Parisian French, with the occasional introduction of special, elegant phrases. He omitted matters of
METHODS OF LANGUAGE TEACHING n
secondary importance, and gave his rules a concise form ; he strove for clearness, and made the material so palatable to the teacher that every one could give instruction according to his books.
Plotz's volumes appeared in numerous editions, revised again and again to suit the most varied demands and needs, but their author saw an ever-increasing antagonism rising up against his work.
This opposition we may regard to-day as perfectly justified, if we revert to the earlier editions of twenty-five years ago, when the books were in almost universal use in German schools. They were divided into lessons, generally not too extensive for a single period of instruc- tion. At the beginning of each lesson stood the vocabulary, then came the rules, to which were added individual sentences both in the mother tongue and in the foreign language, with no connection and of motley content. These sentences were intended to put the vocabu- lary and rules just given to the fullest possible use. A few exam- ples may well be quoted: Le mur est noir. Le chien dufrere est beau. Le jardin du pere est grand. Le frere et le pere ont h bon pain. Le present du pere est beau. Le lion est clement, il est beau. Le cheval du roi est noir. /'ai re(U un beau present. — T/ie garden is beautiful. The kijig has a black horse. The wall is black. L have a bread. Thou hast a book and a dog. The brother has got a beaictiful gift. The horse of the father was kind.
Later the feminines were introduced, together with the imperfect of avoir, etc., always accompanied by a number of sentences of the above quality. As the first words were to give as complete a picture of French pronunciation as possible, Plotz even in his first pages required of the children such words as la girouette, which would appear sporadically in sentences expressly manufactured for the pur- pose and then naturally be quickly forgotten. From my own school days I can remember how we used to long for the hour to come when the modest beginnings of a practical application of the living language should finally be made. Vain hope ! Plotz's text-books offered the teacher no opportunity for such exercise. From time to time, it is true, questionaries were inserted, which we greeted as the green oases of this barren waste of insipid sentence-translating, and yet these scant colloquies were of no real service for a first-hand train- ing in free conversation. It was merely self-deception for us to regard it as the commencement of ability to speak when in answer to the printed questions Qui a invente rimpri?nerie? Qui a decou- vert VAmeriquel Qui a itivente le paratonnerrel we replaced the
12 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
interrogative pronoun with the names Gutenberg, Christophe Colomb, and Fratiklin. Committing words to memory, translating sentences, drilUng in irregular verbs, later memorizing, repeating, and applying grammatical rules with their exceptions, — that was and eternally remained our main occupation ; for not until the last years of the higher schools with the nine-year curriculum did French reading come to anything like prominence, and that was the time when free compositions in the foreign language were to be written !
What a senseless demand to make of pupils who up to that time had always been tied to the apron-strings of translation ! Instinctively we felt that the everlasting rendition of foolish sentences had not quali- fied us for independent expression in the foreign tongue ; that we had not learned to think in this language. Always accustomed to translate sentences out of the mother tongue, we wrote our essays first in Ger- man and then made them over into more or less horrible French, What profited the admonition of the teacher : write simply and unpre- tendingly, write as if you were telling somebody a story in French — write as you speak ! But we had never learned to speak French. Sprachgefilhl, so indispensable for an untrammeled expression in the foreign language, had not been developed within us, and because of the arrangement of Plotz's text-books with their confused mass of translation-exercises and grammatical rules any possible feeling for the foreign language had been systematically killed. Instead of expressing ourselves boldly and with pleasure we lived in continual fear of mistakes, and whenever we came to a situation where we were obliged to write a letter or speak in the foreign language, there arose threateningly before our minds a veritable forest of paragraphs, an impenetrable thicket of grammatical rules ; ever and again the anxious question confronted us, impeding our progress. In which lesson of Plotz did we learn this or that .''
As a result of such study the achievements of young clerks who were intrusted with the foreign correspondence of mercantile offices were unsatisfactory. And those of us who afterwards visited France stood helpless and confused when confronted by linguistic difficulties, knowing in answer to the question Est-ce que voiis parlez fratifais ? barely enough to stammer a nervous tPi pen, and to beseech the vivacious Frenchman who talked to us, Parlez lentement, s'il vous plait! How could we have been able to understand him? He did not speak in the verses of Corneille, nor in the prose of Voltaire's Charles XII.
METHODS OF LANGUAGE TEACHING 13
Still, Ollendorff and Plotz were not alone to blame for this negative result. The choice of our reading, with its one-sided emphasis on the classical, had been not less ill-advised than that of our text-books. As we had never read nor heard in school colloquial Frerich or the French of every-day life, when in the streets of Paris we could not even ask which way to turn. And as text-books such as we have above characterized, in their pedantic plan, administered the material for teacher and pupil alike in well-prepared doses, they naturally promoted the existence of inferior teachers, because, forsooth, " any one could teach " according to Plotz. To-day, however, it is right- fully demanded of each instructor in a modern foreign language that he shall have been in the foreign country with whose medium of speech he is dealing, and that he shall be at least master of every- day conversation. Upon his ability as a teacher, as well as upon his knowledge, present-day text-books and methods undoubtedly make higher demands. But in fairness it should not remain unmentioned that Plotz's method too has been much improved and his text-books thoroughly revised, especially by Karess and Gustav Plotz.
In Germany official regulations, not having advanced with the need of the times, often favored by their dogmatic orders and prohibitions the old system of language teaching as we have above described it. In one of these regulations is to be found the arbitrary statement, "To produce fluency in conversation can not be the mission of the school." And a philosopher, Eduard von Hartmann, much in vogue in certain circles during the seventies, wrote in his book Zur Reform des hdhe7'en Schiilwesefis : " On account of the number of pupils in our classes, learning to speak foreign tongues is impossible, or it is only to be attained by neglecting other higher courses of education. The most that can possibly be demanded in the way of ability to speak is an analysis of passages read and" — oh, the wisdom o'f these words ! — " the reproduction of grammatical rules." It is also interesting to read Hartmann's preposterous assertion that English can lay no claim to general educational value and therefore should be eliminated from the curriculum of German schools. Instead of English the " Philosopher of the Unconscious " strongly advocates a more intense study of French, emphasizes ever and again the great importance of French composition, but has no wofd of condem- nation for those antiquated methods which never lead to free idio- matic expression and to thinking in the foreign language; two things essential in any theme which pretends to purity of style.
14
THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
A very original course which led in a surprisingly short time to the acquisition of almost a dozen foreign languages was pursued by Heinrich Schliemann, the hero of the Trojan excavations, a highly gifted, self-made man in the best sense of the word, and one who never enjoyed the privilege of regular school instruction. In his autobiography he tells us how he learned English. "My simple method consisted in the first place of reading aloud a great deal, of making no translations, of continually writing compositions on sub- jects of interest, of correcting these under the guidance of the teacher, memorizing them, and repeating at the next lesson what had been corrected in the previous one. In order to acquire as soon as possible a good pronunciation, I attended services in the English Church regularly twice every Sunday, and repeated softly after the minister each word of the sermon. On all my trips as errand-boy (Schliemann then held a subordinate position in an Amsterdam mercantile house) I carried in my hand a book out of which I would learn something word for word. In this way I strengthened my memory, and in three months could recite daily twenty printed pages of English prose to my two teachers. Thus I knew by heart the Vicar of Wakefield and Ivanhoe. As the memory is capable of much greater concentration by night than by day, I found nocturnal repetition of the greatest advantage."
In such a way, Schliemann assures us (but I must confess that I can not read his account without a frequent shaking of the head), he acquired in half a year a thorough knowledge of English. And in another six months he claims to have mastered the French language by memorizing Fenelon's Telemaque and Saint-Pierre's Paul et Virginie. He studied modern Greek through the medium of a modern Greek translation of the latter story, and from this proceeded to ancient Greek, w^here he naturally took up the classics. But to continue in his own words : " I lost not a moment of my precious time in the study of grammatical rules. For when I saw that no one of all the boys who are tormented for years in the Gymnasien with grammatical rules was afterwards able to write fluently in the Greek language with- out making the most clumsy errors, I had to assume that the method pursued in the schools was false. To my mind one can acquire a thorough knowledge of grammar only by practice, — i.e. through the attentive reading aloud of good prose and the memorizing of model pieces." It may appear strange that the- highly talented man should use in his energetic self-instruction some of the antiquated
METHODS OF LANGUAGE TEACHING 15
authors who had already played a role in the Jacotot method. Schlie- mann maintained that he was thoroughly familiar with all the gram- matical rules of those languages which he had hurried through at such a tremendous pace. " And if it happens," he continues, " that somebody claims to have discovered errors in my writings, I can offer every time, as an infallible proof of the correctness of my form of expression, citations from standard authors in which those very phrases which I used appear."
We have here then the picture of an imitative method which may prove satisfactory in the case of so highly gifted a nature as that of Heinrich Schliemann, especially when it is accompanied by such unflagging industry and such a phenomenal memory ; but before this method could be applied to teaching in general it would need thorough-going modification. Nevertheless a Leipzig publisher, Paul Spindler, found sturdy schoolmen who adopted Schliemann's ideas, and (with certain changes) made practical application of them in text-books, — Emil Penner in Berlin and Albert Harnisch in Cassel. Let us listen to the enunciation of their pedagogical principles : " The pupil wishes to speak the foreign language. Now when we speak we reproduce involuntarily from memory phrases that we have heard before, as is sufficiently shown by the early utterances of the child. Whenever the adult speaks, his expression is uncon- sciously based upon models and paradigms which are present in his memory, having been stored up at some former time. Give the stu- dent of a foreign language, then, a text to be gradually memorized, one that is not difficult, not antiquated, and" — a thing that seems to me a happy innovation — " one prepared for this special peda- gogical purpose, but withal a connected, continuous narrative. The pupil will assimilate not merely the words but also the numerous grammatical forms, phrases, and whole sentence-constructions, — and all these in such a way that they can be employed again by him in mnemonic reproduction without the necessity of previously comparing their significations in the mother tongue. Only by such reminiscent reproduction is ability to think in the foreign tongue attainable."
The starting-point, then, is the language itself in its most finished form, and the grammatical laws, in so far as it is really necessary to comprehend them, are explained only by way of supplement.
Schliemann's method rejects all practice in translation as purpose- less and not conducive to an independent use of the language ; demands in its stead, however, oral and written reproduction of the
l6 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
memorized text and independent utterance in the foreign language, with the help of thus acquired word-forms and sentence-construc- tions. In the texts which form the basis of such language teaching the editors of the Schliemann text-books offer material prepared according to pedagogical principles: a story which introduces the pupil pleasantly and clearly to the affairs of the foreign nation, and thus not only furnishes him with the vocabulary of every-day life, but also arouses and excites his interest in the country and people about whom he is reading. New factors are thereby brought into the service of language teaching in original and attractive fashion.
The men whom we now look upon in Germany as the real fathers of a great reform in modern language teaching made their first appearance as accusers. They wished to be heard far and wide, and hence used vigorous language ; for nothing so attracts attention, so stirs all hearts, as the cry /^accuse. The reform writers of the seventies and eighties placed three accusations in the front rank. They cried out to the advocates of the earlier methods, to the teachers of the modern languages, " You are overloading and overburdening the poor school-children. And in spite of this you are attaining only unsatisfactory results with regard to pronunciation and with regard to the practical mastery of the written and spoken language. You are neglecting the Eealim and are not placing a complete picture of modern culture before the minds of your pupils."
And who was the herald of this great movement in Germany.? Strangely enough, a representative of the ancient languages — Hermann Perthes. He published in 1875 ^'^ ixn^ortzxit Zur Eeform des lateinischen Utiterrichts aiif Gymttasien ujid Realschulen, and here he proclaimed to the language teachers of the old school : " You do not sufficiently take into consideration the nature of the child ; you do not know how to build up your teaching upon a psychological basis, to arouse due interest in the content of the reading material, to advance it to the place where it belongs, to make it the central point of all teaching. You have not regarded properly the power of imitation, so strong in youth ; you have not offered a living con- ception of things ; and, instead of leading your pupils by analytical pathways to unconscious, easy acquisition, you have incurred the responsibility for the complaints of overwork which have become so general in the schools."
And just as Hermann Perthes indicated the inability of the pupils to fulfill the requirements under the old 7-egime, Klotzsch in two
METHODS OF LANGUAGE TEACHING 17
publications of the following year subjected the results of French instruction to a no less candid criticism. His demand — first the thing (language), then the abstraction (rules) — reappears in its essentials in all later writings of the reformers, and can be held as one of the main principles accepted to-day by the overwhelming majority of modern-language teachers.
In 1878 Count Pfeil, old in years but in the opinion of many still a man of storm and stress, sought to demonstrate the entire super- fluousness of grammar and to eliminate all translation into the foreign language as pernicious nonsense. I am speaking of his article in the twentieth volume of the Pddagogischcs Archiv, but would also call attention to his later pamphlets : that of 1879 ^i^h the strange title Eins ! that of 1882 with the alarming heading Unser Schiilwesen ist kraiik ! and that of 1883 with the legend full of promise, Wie lernt man eifie Sprache ?
A telling effect was produced in 1878 by the timely and really excellent remarks of Moritz Trautmann, published in the first volume of Anglia, relating especially to the description and definition of sounds. To him is due the great merit of being the first to advocate the phonetic side of the reform for actual school instruction. Traut- mann opened the eyes and ears of many modern-language teachers, and convinced them of the great importance of phonetics in teaching. To him also we owe the full-toned and energetic cry of accusation that has often sounded through the literature of the modern-language reform movement : " The pronunciation of the modern languages as taught in the schools is appalling ! "
In 1880 there appeared at Trautmann's side an almost unknown teacher in Wiesbaden, but one who has since won for himself the leadership in this war of reform, Dr. Wilhelm Victor, now profes- sor at the University of INIarburg, and most favorably known through his epoch-making writings on sound-physiology and meth- ods. In 1880 he published in the second volume of the Zeitschrift fur franzosische Sprache the characteristic features of his position on the question " whether to teach written language, or language." There he emphasized the necessity of starting from the sound — made the demand that the teaching of accidence be based upon it. He taught the functions of the organs of speech ; he referred to the formation of the sounds of speech and to a simplification of the existing orthography into one more adapted to the real pronunciation.
l8 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
Two years later Vietor followed this by his then anonymous pamphlet Der Sprachunterricht mufi umkehren ! Eiti Beitrag zur Uberbii rdiingsfrage von Quousque Tandem. (The Teaching of Lan- guages Must Start Afresh: a Contribution to the Subject of Over- burdening of Pupils, by Quousque Tandem.) ^
Seldom has a bulky folio made so great a sensation, produced so large a literature of praise and bitter attack, as this small pamphlet con- sisting of scarcely two score pages. " Victor's book," said Geheimrat Miinch, " acted like a trumpet-blast, excellent for the awakening of sleepers." And Dean Russell, in his scholarly work German Higher Schools, rightly calls it " a veritable thunderbolt " !
In this, the most widely read and most famous of all the writ- ings of the reform movement, Vietor made the perverted method of language teaching directly responsible for the overburdening of the school children. He referred in bold and vigorous words to the criminal neglect of phonology, to the routine and pedantry of the text-books, to the disregard of thought-content, to the lifelessness of existing language teaching, and to the unsympathetic juxtaposition of languages in the school curriculum. He longed for the destruc- tion of rules and disjointed sentences, and declared translating into foreign languages to be an art that had nothing in common with the school.
1 Heilbronn. Gebriider Henninger, 1882. Several editions have since appeared.
II. THE REFORM OF MODERN-LANGUAGE TEACHING IN GERMANY
It is desirable to give as accurate an analysis as possible of the contents of Victor's pamphlet which exercised so material an influence upon the reorganization of modern-foreign-language teach- ing in Germany, especially as an English translation, I am sorry to say, has not appeared.
Victor takes us first of all to a class-room where the instruction is being conducted according to the traditional method, in order to indicate how perverted a course the teachers are pursuing.
If the pupil should be asked, " Of what does a word consist ? " we could be certain of hearing the answer, " Of letters." A word is pronounced: e.g. fc^inarj. The pupil in question will hold fast to his opinion and enumerate the letters ], c, f), m, a, x, 5. He has no idea that his answer merely coincides with a quite accidental orthog- raphy. We ask him further for the sounds of which the chosen word is composed. We receive the same answer: f, c, I), m, a, r, 5, and the child looks at us in amazement for putting such superfluous questions. That f, c, i), are three signs for a single sound, but that J is a single sign for two sounds (the t and f sounds),- — of all this you may be sure the pupils have never heard, for the fatal confusion of written and spoken language is implanted in the child with the primer. Alas for him who does not know that a, e, i, 0, u, r), are vowels, and the remaining letters or " sounds " of the alphabet consonants ! But ask the pupil or even the teacher for the cause of this classifi- cation ! " The consonants cannot be pronounced by themselves," answers the teacher [what occurs then when we s/ioo the chickens with a s/i^l, "only the vowels can form syllables," he continues [but nevertheless the child learns 58ft! roer fommt ba ftiH unb [tumm?] — in short, we must listen to a system of phonetics which is unutterably
nonsensical.
Another teacher, especially if he be strenuous and pedantic, will
demand that the child distinguish in pronunciation between at and
ei, e.g. ©aite (string, of a violin), ©cite (page, of a book), although
19
20 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
this distinction was lost to German five centuries ago, A third teacher regards it as indispensable that soft h, b, g, be spoken at the end of syllables and words (for what " final position " is, the pupils never even get the opportunity of learning) ; hence, @rab, gefunb, Setrug, instead of ©rap, gefunt, Setruf or 23etru(^. Victor calls this last a direct falsification of the German language, which recognizes to the present day in such words only unvoiced explosive and fricative sounds in final position. The fp, [t, of the Hanoverian appeal par- ticularly to a fourth teacher, perhaps on musical grounds, and he accordingly foists upon his pupils this Low German pronunciation, which even in the times of Luther was nothing but a provincialism. For in Luther's German appear fc^tel)ert, fd)toJ3en, fd^pringen, which were retained in the standard pronunciation of High German.
After the letters have been illumined with such tender care and the alphabet is duly practiced, school grammar proper begins with the parts of speech : with their names, that is, but without objective explanation or logical foundation. Later, in the treatment of syntax much the same course is pursued with subject, predicate, object, and attribute. And whence come the multitudinous mistakes ? Because a name has been given the child before a full and complete compre- hension of the sentence-content exists in his mind ; the technical nomenclature of an object has been demanded before the definite concept of it and its real significance have been induced.
"And," Victor continues, "just as syllables and groups of syllables should consist for teacher or pupil not of letters but of sounds, so language itself is composed of sentences, and never of individual words except for the purposes of the lexicographer." We can not learn to speak a language by memorizing long lists of disconnected words. If all the rules of grammar were added to such an exact knowledge of isolated vocables, we should be thereby no nearer our goal.
At the commencement of modern-language instruction the teacher should first of all make clear to the pupil the formation and nature of sounds ; should inform him what a close or open vowel is, what the distinction is between simple sounds and diphthongs, between voiced or sonant and unvoiced or surd sounds.
Victor demands that stress be laid at the end of the first year not upon the orthographical uncertainty of the pupil but upon his faults of pronunciation. He then proceeds to deal with many a blun- der made by teachers of French and English in Germany : their
REFORM OF MODERN-LANGUAGE TEACHING 21
mistaken zeal in the matter of declensions, although there are no real declensions in either of these two languages ; and instances likewise the nonsensical rules of gender insisted upon by teachers of Latin. He asks that instead of memorizing rules and exceptions of syntax, the student should be taught to seek a complete under- standing of the basic principle involved. It is not so important that the pupil be able to recite the lists of French verbs which govern the subjunctive, as that he know the essence of the sub- junctive to be uncertainty, doubt, unreality, in contrast to certainty, surety, reality; from this principle any application of the use of the mode is to be explained.
In the second part of his pamphlet Victor describes with caustic irony the customary method of class instruction which assigns the task of memorizing words and the so-called drill in rules. Of the latter performance he says correctly : " What the pupil might have sought and found in his own strength and by independent reflection is pre- sented to him upon a salver. Never can he cry in triumph, ' I have found it,' for he has never learned to seek. Hence the printed rule has no interest for him." In other words, our author desires that the pupil collect some of his grammar for himself, after the material has been laid before him in suitable form,
Victor attacks vigorously the disconnected sentences which are put before the pupil for purposes of translation. "One would think they had been gathered in jest or as holiday merriment." The old-fashioned exercises dealing with domestic affairs he calls a veritable breeding-place of mistakes, a national scourge for teacher and pupil alike, a double and treble sin against the young. And how shall reading be conducted, and how not? The gist, the thought- content, should carry the main stress, and yet many teachers treat reading as if it were merely a kind of running commentary to the grammar. The scraps of literary knowledge which the pupils thus eventually acquire in the slow course of reading where everything is analyzed according to grammatical rule would have been easier to attain had printed translations of the foreign authors been put in their hands.
Victor advises too that pupils be made conversant with the episto- lary style of the foreign language which they are learning, and calls for instruction regarding the country, its peculiarities, its history. He declares it to be no unworthy aim to fit the pupil so that he may ask and find his way about in the foreign capital.
22 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
He wishes the modern cultural languages to take priority over the ancient tongues, and the practical proposals with which his pamphlet closes culminate in the following demand : the course of instruction must begin with a preparatory schooling in phonology. For this pur- pose teachers should study phonetics. They should know how the organs of speech act in the production of the various sounds. They should be qualified to give their pupils elementary instruction about this, proper helps and hints for the right enunciation of sounds. They should be able, as soon as a mistake in pronunciation is made, to indicate to the pupil where his error of articulation lies.
Further : the elementary language-book should contain fresh, stir- ring reading-material, and from this all further instruction should take its start. No material analogous to the Cornelius Nepos of the Latin period, says Victor, but something from the rich treasures of rhymes and stories, riddles and songs. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter, and all that these seasons have to offer of work, enjoyment and play. Home and hearth, garden, field, and wood, land and water, earth and sky — of these the children should read in the foreign tongue, they should be trained to converse with their teachers about them entirely in the foreign language.
Victor's understanding of the course of the analytical-inductive method is as follows : " No home preparation shall be demanded of the pupil. The teacher reads aloud in class a short piece slowly and distinctly as many times as may be necessary, during which exercise the books of the pupils are closed. He furnishes the meanings of the words not yet known nor likely to be inferred from the context, leav- ing the complete translation to the spirit of rivalry of the class, which must be kept of course under strict control. Then the books are opened. The teacher reads the piece aloud again or allows one of the best pupils to present it ; others — the number of volunteers will be great — follow in reading and in translating. After he has assured himself that they understand the meaning of each individual word, the teacher puts questions to the pupils regarding the content of the text read (under some circumstances first in the mother tongue, then in the foreign language) ; and answers are to be given from the open book in the foreign language and in complete sentences. The books are now closed, and first the confident pupils, later the more timid, reproduce the story in the foreign tongue. Then writing may begin. First on the blackboard, then in the note-book, both in the form of answers to questions set by the teacher. In the next hour of instruction
REFORM OF MODERN-LANGUAGE TEACHING 23
the piece is repeated. A list of words in phonetic transcription at the end of the reader, later a dictionary, enable the pupil to look up at home vocables which have escaped his memory. The learning or memorizing of words is not demanded, and the teacher does not announce that a poem or a suitable prose piece is to be recited in the next period until the great majority of the pupils leave the class with the consciousness that they ' already know it ' and desire to repeat it to their parents.
" Written work to be done at home shall not be assigned, and translating into the foreign language is an art that has no connec- tion with study in school. In the course of time the treatment of the reading matter must become more independent, but the double aim — understanding and reproduction — should never be lost to sight. That the work of reproduction will soon have at its disposal an ever- increasing stock of spontaneous forms of thought and expression, is self-evident. But what of grammatical detail? Quite of its own accord this will attach itself to the reading. At frequent intervals the reading matter which has been studied in the meantime should be reviewed with definite chapters of grammar in mind, and the results systematically classified and used to supplement former statements. There is not the least doubt that the foreign language must be spoken in the class. Instruction in the classical languages has with its present-day methods not attained the goal of expression. From this failure we can learn how not to teach."
Although I do not agree in all details with the " father of the reform " whom I admire so highly, I have thought it best to give an exact statement of his views, but I reserve the privilege of showing later how in practice much has assumed another form than that originally intended. His fame of having by his strong cry of warn- ing prepared the way for needed and helpful innovations has of course not been lessened by the fact that expectation and realization have not always met.
Victor's views met with enthusiastic approbation and energetic protest. In the clash of opinions the modest, earnest man continued quietly in his course, conscious of his purpose. He worked unceas- ingly away on the new edition of his famous work, Elemente der Phoiietik und Orthoepie des Deutschefi, Englischen iind Franzosischen mit Rucksicht auf die Bed'urfnisse der Lehrpraxis, an abridged edition of which he published in 1897, under the title Kleine Phonetik. He prepared for foreigners desirous of learning German an excellent
24 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
little book, German Pronunciatmi, Practice and Theory^ and the pamphlet entitled Wie ist die Aiissprache des Deutschen zu lehren ? He published the phonetic charts which have proved so advanta- geous for the teaching of pronunciation on a phonetic basis, and a reader, Deiitsches Lesebuch hi Lautschrift ah Hulfsbuch zur Erwerbiing einer miisterg'ultigen Aiissprache. He founded and edited the period- icals Phonetische Studien and Die neueren Spracheti, the latter the authoritative organ of the German reform movement. And finally, as university professor at Marburg, he developed a corps of capable modern-language teachers to whom he gave a thorough training in phonetics as an invaluable aid in their difficult calling.
And the movement that Victor had started in his pamphlet was successfully carried out by like-minded, efficient teachers with peda- gogical talent, ever on the watch for the practical. A large literature relating to methods has appeared, Victor's suggestions have been elaborated in detail, and many a new hint, many a careful modifica- tion, many a piece of practical advice, have been found profitable in the schoolroom.
As a lively interest has been manifested in these writings by American teachers, I would submit the following list which I have selected from the mass of reform literature as of greatest importance for any further study of the subject.
Bahlsen, Der franzosische Sprachunterricht im ticiien Kurs. Berlin,
1892. BiERBAUM, Die analytisch-direkte Mciliode. Kassel, 1889. Breymann, Der neiisprachliche Unterricht aiiGyinnasieti und Realschnlen.
Miinchen, 1882. Breymann und Moller, Ztir Reform des jieiisprachlichen Unterrichts.
Miinchen, 1884. Fetter, Ein Versuch mit der analytischen Lehrmethode beim Unterricht
in der fransosischcn Sprache. Wien, 1890. Franke, Die praktische Spracherlernung auf Grund der Psychologie und
Physiologic. Heilbronn, 1884. Hornemann, Zur Reform des neusprachlichen Unterrichts auf hbheren
Lehranstalten. 2 Hefte. Hannover, 1885, 1886. Klinghardt, Ein fahr Erfahrungen mit der neueti Methode. Marburg,
1888. Klinghardt, Die Alien und die Jungen. Marburg, 1888.
^The German edition was entitled Die Aiissprache des Sc/iri/ideutsc/ie)i, mit dem Wdrterverzeichnis fiir die deutsche Rechtschreibung in phonetischer Umschrift sowie phonetischen Texten. 4te Auflage, Leipzig, Reisland's Verlag, 1898.
REFORM OF MODERN-LANGUAGE TEACHING 25
Klinghardt, Drei weiterejahre Erfahrungen mit der imitaiiven Methode. Marburg, 1892.
KiJHN, Ziir Methode des franzosiscJieti Sprachitnierrichts. Wiesbaden, 1883.
KuHN, Entwurf eines Lehrplans fiir den franzbsischen Unterricht am Realgyintiasui?n. (^Mittel- itnd Oberstufe.) Marburg, 1889.
LouviER, ijber Naturgemdfiheit im fremdsprachlichen Unterj-icht. Ham- burg, 3te Auflage, 1888.
Mangold, Gelbste und utigeloste Fragen der Methodik. Berlin, 1892.
MiJNCH, Zur Forderung des franzbsischen Unierrichts. Heilbronn, 1883. (2te umgearbeitete Auflage, Leipzig, 1895.)
Ohlert, Die fretndsprachliche Reformbewegung mit besonderer Beriick- sichtigting des Franzbsischen. Konigsberg, 1886.
Ohlert, Methodische Anleitung ziim Unterricht im Franzbsischen. Han- nover, 1893.
QuiEHL, Franzbsische Aiissprache tind Spi'achfertigkeit. Marburg, 1889. (2te Auflage, 1893.)
Rambeau, Der franzbsische und englische Unterricht in der detitschen Schule. Hamburg, 1886.
Von Roden, Inwiefern miifi der Sprachnnterricht umkehren f Marburg, 1890.
Von Sallwurk, Fiinf Kapitel vom Erlerneii fremder Sprdchen. Berlin, 1898.
Stiehler, Streifziige aiif dem Gebiet der nensprachlichen Reformbewe- gung. Marburg, 1890.
Stiehler, Zur Methodik des neusprachlichen Unterrichts. Marburg, 1891.
Walter, Die Reform des neicsprachlichen Unterrichts auf Schule und Universitdt. Mit einem Nachwort von Wilhelm Vie tor. Marburg.
Walter, Der franzbsische Klassenunterricht {Unterstufe^. Marburg, 1895.
Walter, Englisch nach dem Frankfurter Refor77ipla7i. Marburg, 1898.
Watzoldt, Die Aufgabe des neusprachlichen Unterrichts tend die Vorbil- dung der LeJirer. Berlin, 1892.
An almost complete bibliography of the entire material is to be found in Hermann Breymann's Die neusprachliche Refortnlitteratur von 1876 bis i8gj (Leipzig, 1895), in which over eight hundred arti- cles and books for and against the reform movement are cited. In his second bibliographical work, Die neusprachliche Reformlitteratur von i8g4 bis i8gg (Leipzig, 1900), Breymann, who is a professor at the University of Munich, supplemented his former praiseworthy publication.
26 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
Whoever would be convinced of the practical results which these reform proposals and endeavors of Victor and his followers have effected, should visit the Musterschule in Frankfort-on-the-Main, which is under the competent direction of Max Walter. There the director gives instruction in French and English according to the " new method," and capable teachers work under his guidance successfully along the same lines.
It cannot be denied that even to-day many university professors and teachers of modern languages in German schools are unfavorably disposed toward the entire reform movement. The old and easy method of grammatical analysis will undoubtedly for a long time boast of many stubborn followers, — but regardless of their protests we have proceeded to the order of the day, and the so-called " Decem- ber Conference," summoned in 1890 by the Emperor, recommended, besides a material abridgment of instruction in grammar, a method of teaching which should start with reading and develop a knowledge of grammar as a result of this reading. A new goal, — so ran the last decree of that Schulenqiietekomtnission, — shall from now on be set all higher schools, the oral and written employment of the foreign language shall be placed in the foreground, and grammar shall be merely the means to an end !
In Austria the higher authorities had already recognized the necessity for a reform in modern-language teaching. As early as May, 1887, the Minister of Education in Vienna had declared that the methods of teaching English and French must deviate from those used in teaching the ancient languages; must above all else strive to render the modern languages a means of international communica- tion. And in the decrees of the Austrian educational authorities an important step was taken in advance of the German position, for these regulations exclude from the lower classes translations from the mother tongue, admitting them only as of secondary importance in the middle and upper classes. In place of such translation the Austrian schools substitute dictation, questions and answers, remodel- ing, reproduction ; in short, tasks which lie within the domain of the foreign language, which are in close connection with the reading, and serve to arouse a feeling for the language. So Austrian official circles drew radical conclusions from the reform in methods even earlier, and with greater vigor, than those of Germany.
I know that university professors in America, the land of rapid progress, often regard the speaking of foreign languages as a goal
REFORM OF MODERN-LANGUAGE TEACHING 27
not attainable by the school, or as of little consequence. And others fear perhaps that with so practical an end in view the formal edu- cational worth of language study will be lost. In reply to such doubts, Dr. Schulze, Director of the College Frangais in Berlin, has spoken as follows : " If the modern foreign languages are taught in the way that Latin was formerly taught, with the intention of speak- ing it, they will exercise an important and peculiar influence in the development of the child's intellectual power. They give the mind a versatility which the present method of instruction in Latin and Greek can never impart. They develop — in contrast to classical instruction, which is directed solely toward the cultivation of the logical faculties — a productive ability, an artistic ease in creation, which is absolutely necessary as a counterbalance."
Professor Adolf Tobler, the famous Romance scholar of the Uni- versity of Berlin, considers it too great resignation, too unbounded modesty, to believe that in foreign-language teaching the hope of imparting actual ability to speak must be renounced. "To speak and write a foreign tongue is a means of instruction of such far- reaching consequence that it must be insisted upon." It is difficult to understand how Tobler, after uttering these words, could remain in his sympathies on the side of the opposition to the reform move- ment, and yet such is the fact. As university professor did he anticipate that the endeavors of future teachers of modern languages would be too much directed towards attaining fluency in speaking ? Or did he fear that they would devote too much attention to the modern, living language, and too little to the older stages of linguistic development, that they would train a generation of young people who would no longer take pleasure in the traditional strictly philo- logical study of the literary monuments of the Middle Ages .''
In the strife of opinions which filled the first decade after the appearance of Victor's reform pamphlet, two sharply defined camps were distinguished : on one side the teachers of the classics and those modern-language teachers who held fast to old-style grammar-study, upon whose banner was inscribed the battle-cry " logical linguistic training"; on the other the advocates of phonetics, the opponents of translation methods, teachers who laid stress upon the feeling for a language and the practical application of it in conversation and written expression rather than upon extensive grammatical knowl- edge. The result was a secession, at the general German Philologeri- und Schulmdnnertage of the modern-language teachers who were
28 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
favorable to the reform movement. Every other year German Neu- philologentage are held, at which a valiant fight for new ideals is waged. A crisis came at the Berlin meeting in June, 1892, when Stephan Watzoldt advocated in glowing words the reform of foreign- language teaching in the schools and universities, and his auditors cheered him to the echo. The victory of the new method was won.
This does not mean, however, that the teachers of modern lan- guages in Germany approve unconditionally of all Victor's plans. With most of them there has gradually developed in practice a method which holds aloof from the excesses of either of the two diametrically opposed tendencies ; which proceeds mediatingly, select- ing from all reform experiments and innovations what is best and most practical.
After some experience and observation in America I should regard such a course as well adapted to American conditions. What a few of the most radical reformers have demanded, the renunciation of systematic grammar, cannot be recommended in a land where the majority of the pupils speak English as their mother tongue. The grammatical categories must be rendered more intelligible to the children, and for this purpose a language richer than English in inflection should be studied. The inflections of Latin, for example, are certainly of much assistance in giving a clear comprehension of grammar; but when this is not studied, the desired assistance in acquiring that grammatical insight which must be attained in school should be sought in German, which is more highly inflected than English, or in French.
Work therefore towards systematic grammar even in modern- language teaching. But do not start with the system. Do not begin, as in former days, with practice in declensions and conjugations ; begin with connected texts, even if they be short and easy, from which grammatical forms and rules can be gradually discovered. And when a sufficient amount of grammatical material has been col- lected, then place together what is homogeneous, what is related, and build up the system. This analytical-inductive course is warmly recommended even by those who style themselves " moderate reformers," as whose representatives in Germany I would name above all others Wilhelm Miinch and Oskar Ulbrich.^ Miinch
^ Miinch is the author of Zur Forderung des franzbsischen Unterrichts (2te Auflage, Leipzig, 1S95), and Ulbrich of Uber die franzosische Lektilre an Realgym- nasieii (Berlin, 1884).
REFORM OF MODERN-LANGUAGE TEACHING 29
regards grammar as the backbone of all language instruction, but warns against an over-use of grammatical rules and exceptions ; recommends limiting one's self to the typical, the important, and the essential. With Victor he firmly advocates "learning to speak," without which modern-language teaching is doomed to be ridiculous, and he believes that continual practice in conversation in con- nection with the reading should form the central point of instruc- tion. He emphasizes the ethical and aesthetic benefit derived from cultivating a correct pronunciation ; he would have the pupils held to good and well-chosen reading; he demands that every teacher be a master of the living language, and, if possible, attain in the foreign country fluency and a faultless pronunciation. In his high regard for phonetics Miinch also agrees with Vietor, and requires of the teacher a knowledge of the elements of sound-physiology, but warns against introducing scientists' terminology into the class- room. Especial emphasis is laid upon careful drill in the sounds peculiar to the foreign language and upon a most distinct articulation, but phonetic transcription he believes to be superfluous. He recom- mends frequent practice of the ear by exercises in dictation ; admits the worth and importance of free composition, of independent oral and written expression of thought ; wishes to see themes carefully prepared even in the earlier stages of instruction, and a feeling for the language developed. And yet he would not have all practice in translation laid aside, even though he frankly acknowledges that rendering the native classics in a foreign language is nonsense, as even the best achievements of pupils in this line can be nothing more than awkward bungling.
According to Miinch, reading must no longer be a mere gram- matical note-book. The content must have its proper influence, not only in the later stages of instruction when the characteristic pecu- liarities of the nation's classics and their importance from the stand- point of the history of civilization are to be brought home to the pupil, but from the very start, where valuable material is to be offered the student. Herein he opposes the theses that Wendt (Hamburg) pro- posed at the Neuphilologentag in Vienna, which limit the reading of the poets to a course of six months, and exclude grammar and the his- tory of literature from the school. With Vietor and Watzoldt, Miinch also emphasizes the fact that the final goal of all language teach- ing is a comprehension of the foreign people's spirit, of its peculiar civilization. An important factor in this is an acquaintance with the
30
THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
Realieti. Klinghardt in 1886 was the first, to my knowledge, to call attention to this field. By Rcalioi he understands what in Latin and Greek are called "antiquities"; that is, everything connected with the civilization of modern nations in their interpretation of life. And this field should be brought into greater prominence by the use of models as an aid in class-room and in private reading, by text- books and university lectures. Applied to American educational conditions, German and French instruction would aim to impart to the pupils a knowledge and understanding of the more important details of the geography and history of Germany and France, of their sagas, folk-lore, and civiUzation, of their government and institutions, of the manners and customs of former and more recent times ; would even have to make the pupils to some degree conversant with such material as is found in R. Kron's useful reading-books. '^
Many and various other suggestions for further enlivening modern- language teaching have been put forward. Divers tendencies which run parallel to those already defined influence the teaching of foreign languages in German schools. It is traceable to the influence of such suggestions that recent Prussian Courses of Study (1901) allow free compositions in the foreign language to be written in the upper classes, for these are considered to be as good a proof of knowledge on the student's part as was formerly a translation exercise interlarded with grammatical difficulties.
Some years ago Vietor and his friends presented to the Minister of Education in Berlin a petition which urged that, as the new method favored by the government trained the pupil from the very beginning in free expression in the foreign tongue, no translation of the old style be demanded in the final examination. The Prussian government seemed to recognize the justice of this objection, and in this matter allowed the teachers of the modern languages the desired freedom in method. In other respects, also, material concessions were made to the demands of the reformers ; for the regulations declare that the German gymnasium should lay greater stress upon oral performances in modern foreign languages than upon written, and should desist entirely from written examinations. In the official ordinances of the seventies one could still read " Development of fluency in speaking cannot be the task of the school," but the most recent Prussian
1 German Daily Life : Information on the various topics of German life, man- ners, and institutions, and French Daily Life : A guide for the student as well as for the traveller (Nevv York, 1901).
REFORM OF MODERN-LANGUAGE TEACHING
31
Courses of Study demand training in speaking, higher standards of reading materials, familiarization with the foreign people's spirit. A new concession to the method of not translating is the ordinance that even in the reading hour a discussion of the content in the foreign language may at times be substituted for the translation of the text into the mother tongue. The use of phonetic transcription, formerly forbidden in German schools, has not indeed been gen- erally adopted, but is allowed whenever a teacher regards it as prof- itable. Reading and speaking, practice of the ear, dictations, and free compositions have now by official order been brought into the foreground. The methods of modern-foreign-language teaching have indeed changed very materially from those of former days : they have been remodeled to meet the demands and needs of a new time and of modern educational ideals.
Martin Hartmann, who stands at the head of the reformers of modern-language teaching in Saxony, has made pregnant suggestions in various directions. In an important work^ he showed with what profit and success pictures may be used in teaching, how excellently they are adapted to impel children to speak and to convey to them the materials of the foreign language without the mediation of the mother tongue. This same Professor Hartmann advocated school corre- spondence, and succeeded in leading thousands of German boys and girls to correspond, under the guidance of their teachers, with other pupils in France and England. Every year he engages foreigners, skilled instructors in elocution, to present to the pupils in the various cities of Germany selected specimens of French, English, and Amer- ican literature. As is well known, modern-language instruction in Germany is given only by German-born teachers (the few foreigners teaching in private schools need scarcely be taken into account) ; hence it may be estimated how profitable it must be for our pupils to hear real foreigners now and then. Similar arrangements, especially for Berlin, were made fifteen years ago by Kabisch and Bahlsen, and during each winter opportunity is offered language teachers to hear the poetical and prose pieces which are to be taken up in class, read by French and English reciters. As this plan has met with such great success in Germany, it should encourage American teachers not to be satisfied with occasionally sending the pupils to the theatrical presentation of a French or German classic, but to afford them fre- quent occasion of hearing adequate performances by foreign readers.
^ Die Anschauung im neusprachlichen Unterrichte (Wien, 1S95).
32 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
The question of a standard pronunciation must be taken into account, and it seems to me particularly important in German instruction that teacher and pupil have continual opportunity to hear the utterance which, since the transactions of the German Aiissprachekonferenz, is alone regarded as authoritative : the North German stage pronuncia- tion. In addition to the work of Wilhelm Vietor already mentioned,^ I would recommend another pamphlet^ of his and a brochure^ of Theodore Siebs, professor at the University of Greifswald.
In the teaching of French in American schools the question of standard pronunciation could scarcely arise, as from time immemorial the French of Parisian society life has offered the model for every-day discourse, and in elevated diction the stage pronunciation of the The'atre Frangais has had an indisputable authority.
It is quite natural that those who teach their German or French mother tongue in America should be more or less under the influence of a provincial dialect. They may not care to rid themselves of this dialect and acquire a standard pronunciation, but they cannot close their eyes to the fact that a supreme court of appeal is neces- sary and desirable if a uniform pronunciation is to be attained by the pupil. In the three or four years during which instruction in German is imparted, American pupils often have several different teachers : one of these may be under the influence of a South Ger- man or Austrian dialect, another uses Berlin or Saxon provincialisms, while 'a third comes perhaps from Hanover; and each may more or less consciously introduce characteristic features of his native dialect into his teaching. It is impossible to eliminate completely the consequences of such diversity, but in the interest of a pure and true pronunciation in American schools it would be desirable if the resolutions of the Aussprachekonfercnz might be recognized as stand- ard German in all doubtful cases and thus as great unanimity might be secured as has so long prevailed in the teaching of French.
In order to establish a certain uniformity of pronunciation, French as well as German texts have been published for American schools with accompanying phonetic transcription, and I would urgently advise teachers to give them at least a trial.*
^ Die Anssprache des Schriftdetdschen.
2 Wie ist die Aussprache des Dentschen zu lehren ? (3te Auflage, Marburg, 1901}.
3 Deutsche Bilhnenaussprache (Berlin, 1898).
* A French anthology, Chrestomathie fran^aise, morceanx choisis de prose et de poesie avec prononciation Jiguree d. Vusage des etrangers, par Jean Passy et Adolphe
REFORM OF MODERN-LANGUAGE TEACHING 33
The demand that present-day teaching of modern languages shall make the pupil conversant with the so-called Realien has aroused great activity in another direction. Teachers have selected more modern materials for school reading and have avoided the exclusive study of classic authors or historians. They have supplemented the read- ing with maps, sketches, and pictures which give the pupil detailed explanations of many things which the schoolmen of former times believed unworthy to be discussed in class. They have begun, and surely Vv'ith propriet}', to take interest in pictures which represent French and German landscapes and cities, places of historic interest, famous architectural monuments, streets and public squares, impos- ing personalities of earlier and more recent times, types of every-day life — in fact, everything that could be interesting and instructive from the standpoint of the history of civilization. It has been recommended to portray in elementary books the inside of a French or German city-dwelling or farmhouse ; to reproduce original let- ters in characteristic handwriting, for it is a much-lamented draw- back that even our advanced pupils, in spite of a thorough mastery of the foreign language, are not able to decipher letters written by foreigners. In evening schools and in business colleges it would be profitable to bring to the attention of the pupils exact copies of com- mercial letters, announcements, bills of exchange, etc. And at the same time the coinage of a foreign land should not be neglected ; many a new text-book for German schools gives reproductions of coins. Professor Wilhelm Scheffler of Dresden has recommended that a map of Paris in the ]Middle Ages, Holzel's Paris, or a bird's-eye view of Berlin be hung in the class-room and made the basis of conversa- tion in the foreign language. He has had models constructed on trustworthy historic lines, which bring, before the pupils in plastic form the Bastille, the Theatre Moliere, and a rueHe, i.e. a literary salon of the seventeenth century. In like manner he intends to issue soon a model of the Weimar theater at the time of Goethe and Schiller, a representation of the casting of a bell, etc.
In a discourse delivered at the forty-fifth meeting of German philologians and schoolmen at Bremen in 1899, I recommended the establishment of archives for modern-language instruction in
Kambeau, precedes ci^une introdnctio7i sur la methode phonetique (2d revised edition, New York, 1901); and the first volume in a series of "Ideophonic Texts for Acquiring Languages," Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, Act /, edited by Robert Morris Pierce, Editorial Critic George Hempl (New York, 1900).
34 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
which material for object lessons might be kept, together with a rich library that would furnish the teacher with a knowledge of the Realien important for his subject, and guide him in a domain to which his previous study had not directly brought him. Such archives would be the armory from which we Could choose weapons for a teaching full of life and inspiration.
I have been able to touch but briefly upon the manifold efforts which in our day are seeking to serve and further instruction in modern foreign languages. One thing I hope has been brought home to my readers in this general survey of the field : the ways and ends of modern-language teaching are now conceived to be totally differ- ent from those which characterize the teaching of the ancient lan- guages. Activity, purposefulness, and courage have been shown by the reformers, and we may hope that after the gale which has swept away so much of the dust and dead ballast of modern-language teaching has subsided, an enlivening breeze may blow through the class-room to the delight of the pupil and joy of the teacher.
III. PRONUNCIATION
PHONETICS, SOUND-PHYSIOLOGY, PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION
Johan Storm is Professor of Romance and English Philology at the University of Christiania, in a country whose educational system has entered upon rapid advancement and where the "Quousque Tandem method " has numerous advocates. In his highly-esteemed book, Die lebefide Sprache, he says : " As long as teachers of modern foreign languages are wanting in a clear understanding of the proper pro- duction and utilization of speech-sounds, their instruction in accurate pronunciation will be a mere groping about in the dark." Hence Storm recommends to teachers a thorough study of sound-physiology, of phonetics.
This is not an entirely new science. As early as 1836 M. Rapp had drawn attention to this important branch of language study by his VersHch zu einer Physiologie der Sprache. But he had absolutely nothing trustworthy to offer ; and, in the sad condition of language instruction which existed at that time, teachers drew no inspiration from his researches and made no practical application of them. In 1848 Alexander John Ellis, professor at Cambridge, came into promi- nence as the earliest of English phoneticians by the publication of his Essentials of Phonetics. The first clearly arranged presentation of the science of phonetics, however, was given by E. Briicke in Grundz'uge der Physiologie tend Systematik der Sprachlaute (Wien, 1856; 2d edition, 1876), in which he gave the necessary pictorial exhibits for the demonstration of the organism of speech. It was Briicke too who invented a phonetic transcription which im.itated the position of the lips, a system that was later materially perfected and surpassed by Alexander Melville Bell in his conspicuous work Visible Speech (London, 1867). Bell has worked untiringly, in his lectures and in his books alike, to render the elements of phonetics intelligible to wider circles; his Sounds and their Relations appeared in London, 1882 ; Essays on Elocution, New York, 1886; University
35
36 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
Lectures on Phonetics^ New York, 1887 ; Popular Manual of Vocal Physiology and Visible Speech, London, 1889 ; Speech Tones, Wash- ington, 1894.
The honor of having put the science of phonetics upon an endur- ing foundation is due the German physicist H. Hehnholtz, professor at the University of Berlin, whose epoch-making Lehre von den Ton- empfindunge7i (Braunschweig, 1862 ; 4th edition, 1877) has exercised a deep influence upon the leading phoneticians of to-day ; notably upon Eduard Sievers, professor at the University of Leipzig, as is attested by more than one place in his Gnmdz'uge der Lautphysiologie zur Einfiihrujig in das Studium der Lautlehre der indogermanischen Sprachen (Leipzig, 1876 ; 4th edition, 1883) and Phonetik (2d edition, 1898). A concise but excellent survey of the results of phonological investigation was given by Moritz Trautmann, professor at Bonn, in the first volume of Anglia, 1878, and more in detail in his treatise P>ie Sprachlaute im Allgemeinen und die Laute des Englischen, Franzo- sischen 7ind Deutschcn im Beso7ideren (Leipzig, 1884-86). A careful study of the revised edition of this meritorious publication (under the changed title Klei^ie Lautlehre des Deutschen, Pranzosischen und Png- lischen : Bonn, 1903) is urgently recommended to every teacher of modern languages. It includes, as it ought, an indication of the points with which Trautmann would have the pupil made familiar.
As peer of Sievers and Trautmann stands Wilhelm Victor, a list of whose works has already been given in a previous chapter. I would content myself here with the mere mention of his Elemente der Phonetik des Deutschen, Englischen und Pranzosischen (Leipzig, 4th edition, 1894), a classical example of German industry and erudition. The abridged edition, Kleine Phonetik (Leipzig, 1897), will answer all the needs of the ordinary teacher. Victor's phonetic charts, printed in colors, bring the sounds of German, French, and English before the eyes of the pupils with great distinctness, and are meant to serve as the foundation for a first course in pronunciation. These Lauttafeln were published in Marburg, 1893, and are accompanied by explanations and examples. The charts which Dr. Adolph Rambeau, professor in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published in 1888 (Otto Meissner, Hamburg) are also deserving of mention, as are his pamphlet Die Phonetik im franzosischen und englischcfi Klassenunterricht and a paper read by him before the Modern Lan- guage Association of America on The Value of Phonetics in Teaching Modern Languages, printed in the second volume of Victor's Die
PRONUNCIATION 37
neueren Sprachen. And further, I would call attention to the French introduction to the Chrestomathie frufifaise by Rambeau and Jean Passy, in which teachers of French will find many a profitable hint and a summary of the leading works on phonetics.
The most complete bibliographies on the subject are to be found in the fourth edition of Victor's Elemente der Phonetik and in H, Breymann's Die Phonetische Litteratur von i8j6-i8g^ (Leipzig, 1897). It may be of service to my American colleagues to list in addition to the works already mentioned, a selection of such others as are especially valuable for a teacher's purposes.
Beyer, Das Lautsystem des Neufranzosischett. Kothen, 1887.
Beyer und Passy, Eleineniarbiich des gesprochetien Franzbsischen und
Ergdiizungsheft dazu. Kothen, 1894. Beyer, Fraiizosische Phonetik fiir Lehrer mid Studierende. Kothen,
2te Auflage, 1897. Breymann, ijber Laiitphysiologie uiid dercn Bedeutung fiir deti Unter-
richt. Miinchen und Leipzig, 1884. Burt, A Manual of Elonentary P/ionetics. Toronto, 1898. Grandgent, German and English Sounds. Boston, 1892. Hempl, German Orthography and Phonology. Boston, 1898. Hoffmann, Einfiihrung in die Phonetik und Orthoepie der deutschen
Sprache. Marburg, 1888. Klinghardt, Articulations- 7cnd Horiibungen. Praktisches Hiilfsbuch
der PhoTietik fiir Studierende und Lehrer. Kothen, 1897. K.OSCiiW'lTZ, Les Parlers parisiens. Anthologie phonetique. Paris, 1893. Von Meyer, Unsere Sprachwerkzeicge undihre Verwendung ztir Bildung
der Sprachlaute. Leipzig, 18S0. Passy, Abrege de prononciation franqaise. Leipsic, 1897. Passy and H. Michaelis, Dictionnaire pJwnctiqice de la latigue fratt^aise.
Hanovre et Berlin, 1897. Passy, V Ecriture phonetiqice, expose populaire. 3^ edition, Paris, 1899. Passy, Le Frangais parte'. 42 edition, Leipsic, 1896. Passy, Les Sons du franqais. 5^ edition, Paris, 1899. QuiEHL, Einfiihrung in die franzosische Azisspraclie. 3te Auflage, Mar- burg, 1899. RoussELOT, Principes de Phonetiqtie experimentale. Paris, 1 897. So AMES, An Introduction to Phonetics {French, English a7td German').
London, 1891 (new edition, revised by W. Victor, London, 1899). SoAMES, Phonetic Method for Learning to Read. The Teacher's lifamcal,
edited by IV. Vietor. London, 1S97. Sweet, A Handbook of Phonetics. Oxford, 1877. Sweet, A Primer of Phonetics. Oxford, 1890.
38 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
Sweet, Sound Notation. London, 1880-1881. (^Transactions of the
Philological Society^ Sweet, The Practical Study of Languages . A guide for teachers and
learners. London, 1899. Techmer, Phonetik. T. Text tind Anmerkungen. II. Atlas. Leipzig,
1880. Techmer, Zur Veranschatilichung der Latitbildung. {Mit Wandtafel.)
Leipzig, 1885.
Andre, Manuel de diction et de prononciationfran(^aises. Lausanne, 1893. Br^al, De Tenseignemefit des langues vivatites. Paris, 1893. Fraxke, Die praktische Spracherlermmg. Heilbronn, 1884. Franke, Ergdnzungsheft. 4te Auflage, Leipzig, 1894. Franke, Phrases de tous les jours. 56 edition, Leipsic, 1893. Grandgent, a Short French Grammar based on Phonetics. Boston,
1894. Jespersex, The Articulations of Speech Sounds Represented by Means
of Analphabetic Symbols. Marburg, 1889. Matzke, a Primer of French Pronunciation. New York, 1897. Passy, De la me'thode directe de V enseignetnent des langues vivantes.
Paris, 1899. Passy et Tostrup, Lemons de choses en transcription phonetique pour
servir au premier enseignement du franqais. Paris, 1895. Rambeau, Phonetics and Reforin Method. (^Modern Language Notes,
Baltimore; June, November, December, 1893.) RiPPMANN, Elements of Phonetics {Eftglish, French and Gerjnati). Trans- lated and adapted from Vietor's Kleine Phonetik. London, 1899. Storm, Etiglische Philologie. Die lebende Sprache: i. Phonetik und
Aussprache. Leipzig, 1892.
Four periodicals represent the study of phonetics with particular regard to the needs of schools :
1. Phonetische Studieti. Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche und praktische
Phonetik, mit besonderer Riicksicht auf die Reform des Sprachunter- richts. Edited by \V. Vietor, Marburg, 1 887-1 893.
2. Die 7ieueren Sp7-achen. Zeitschrift fiir den neusprachlichen Unterricht.
A continuation of Phonetische Studien. Edited by Vietor, Dorr, and Rambeau. Marburg, since 1893.
3. Le Maitre phonetique. Organ mensuel de I'Association phondtique
Internationale. Redaction et administration : Paul Passy, Paris.
4. Revue intertiationale de rhinologie, otologic, laryngologie, et phoneti-
que expiritnentale. Directeurs : Marcel Natier et I'Abbd Rousselot. Paris. 1899 ^"^ 1900. Continued under new title, La Parole.
PRONUNCIATION 39
As a matter of course, the exertions of the phoneticians are directed not merely towards the production of a better pronunciation of language in the schools, but towards a simplified and more rational orthography, one which does not constantly violate the principle " Write as you speak ! Give an equivalent sign for every spoken sound, but avoid a symbol with which no sound in the pronunciation of the word corresponds." Phoneticians are thus striving for a Spell- ing Reform which would write laf instead of laugh, je se instead of je sais, kval instead of Dual. Is it not really absurd that modern German orthography obliges us to write Dual, ©aal, '^(x\)\, represent- ing the same long a sound by a, by <x<x, and by al)? Phoneticians are longing for the happy time when initial capitals shall be abolished and we shall write as we speak : kvctl, zdl or sal, and tsdl.
But we have by no means reached this ideal stage, and French or German orthography leads children beginning language study to a false pronunciation of words — take for example the pronunciation of German ^\i = zoo, instead of Isoo; a mistake so difficult to eradi- cate, once it has been learned. There are at the disposal of teachers two possible means whereby they may avert the injurious effects of the historical spelling upon pronunciation : they may determine upon the introduction of phonetic transcription, or they may avoid the use of sound-representation until considerable phonetic training has been obtained and the foundation laid for an idiomatic pronunciation which cannot be materially injured by a misleading orthography.
The following arguments may be cited in favor of the use of phonetic transcription:
1. It shows the pupils distinctly of what actually spoken sounds the foreign words consist, and does not confuse by superfluous signs or letters, which are given in the conventional rules of pronunciation as " silent."
2. Phonetic transcription corresponds to the natural course which any one would pursue in learning a new language — say the Chinese — whose characters were unintelligible to him. He would regard it as desirable to have the necessary supply of words pronounced by a foreigner, and would then attempt to establish the groups of for- eign sounds in such a way as should seem practical, inventing new signs for sounds which were entirely strange.
3. Languages were developed long before alphabets were invented ; and even now we are daily becoming acquainted with groups of sounds, constituting words, which are first apprehended by civilized
40 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
nations through the ear and afterwards given a corresponding phonetic spelling.
4. Historical orthography is subject to arbitrary modifications. The German spelling of certain words has been recently changed again for the third or fourth time within a single generation. But pronunciation is far more stable, and consequently its phonetic ren- dering remains fixed.
5. Phonetically transcribed texts assist one in teaching pronuncia- tion. It matters little how often the foreign words have been dwelt upon in class, the sound of them is soon lost. The memory of the correct sounds no longer lingers when the pupil attempts to repeat them at home. The perplexed pupil examines the orthography of these words in his First Book, but in this historical spelling the proper sounds are unfortunately not always to be found. Any one letter presents an unvarying appearance, even though it is pronounced now one way and now another. French at is pronounced as a closed ^-sound, oi as wa. A German 0 is written, but the teacher has pro- nounced an f ; a b or an e stands in the book, but the teacher spoke them as if they were t or d, etc. I have often read in the eyes of American children their wish to retain the sounds as pronounced for them by the teacher. If phonetic transcription is not employed, every atom of home preparation must be done away with during the first weeks ; for historical orthography not only does not assist in the oral preparation of assigned work, it is a positive obstruction.
6. If phonetic signs are written on the blackboard, or the phonetic charts of Rambeau or Vietor are used, much trouble and exertion will be spared the teacher. Even with such aid he will have to pro- nounce and articulate a great deal, but repetition can be often avoided by simply pointing to the distinctive sign.
7. Many a fine distinction in pronunciation is rendered more apparent and effective by a reference to this or that phonetic sign. Graphic representation holds the attention and aids the pupils in correcting the pronunciation of their fellows. From a pedagogical standpoint it is valuable for the teacher to call a pupil to the board and ask, " Which sounds did your classmate just use ? Show me the sound which he should have used."
8. In the rapid reading or speaking of French much is slurred which, if the written words in their customary spelling confront the eye, would not be read so glibly even by the most proficient; for example, Qii'est-cc que c'est que cela, etc.
PRONUNCIATION
41
9. If the pupils are made acquainted with the historical orthog- raphy from the start, of course instruction can not proceed without rules for pronunciation ; as, " In French the s of the plural is silent," "Initial /i is not pronounced" — aspirate and mute A must also be explained. In German likewise one cannot avoid the rule for the pronunciation of d) after various vowels and diphthongs, etc. These numerous statements, designed to make clear the connection between sounds and signs, necessitate an overburdening of the memory and consequently prove an obstruction to a rapid, unconstrained assimilation of the foreign language. More than this, they lead to familiarization with orthography rather than with pronunciation, although at the outset the latter is of superior importance. Max Walter says:^ "If the difference between sound and orthography is to produce no confusion, a thorough training in pronunciation must precede drill in spelling. The longer we hold aloof from an orthog- raphy which is productive of so many mistakes, the more accurately and rapidly will the pupil become familiar with the foreign sounds."
10. A teacher will notice that he unconsciously articulates more exactly and carefully when he has before him a text in phonetic tran- scription than he does when reading the customary orthography or when repeating it entirely from memory.
11. Phonetic texts fix definitely, for all schools in which they are introduced, the minor details of pronunciation that are still unsettled. On account of the many pieces which the Reader contains, it often happens that the teacher himself is guilty of slight inconsistencies in pronunciation. At a later stage this would be of little importance, just as the over-careful articulation of the pupils will also gradually wear off; but at the beginning of their course they should hear the standard pronunciation, and this only. To compass this, one can hardly be pedantic enough. If the same text-book be used, the selections of which are printed in a phonetic transcription of the standard pronun- ciation, successive generations of pupils can obtain an almost identi- cal pronunciation, no matter how often the teachers change, or by what native dialects the latter may be influenced.
12. Every text-book fit for use contains a vocabulary, and every serviceable vocabulary indicates the exact pronunciation of each word. This can be accomplished only by means of phonetic tran- scription, for the pupil will thereby be enabled to inform himself of the pronunciation of new words, to prepare the reading of new
1 In his publication Der fraiizosischc Klassenimterricht (Marburg, 1S88).
42
THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
chapters which the teacher has not yet presented in class, and thus to make up by industry at home what has escaped him because of inattentiveness during the recitation period. The larger lexicons which he will later use indicate the pronunciation of each word by some sort of phonetic device, and it is advantageous for the pupil to become early familiar with the reading of this transcription.
The well-known leader among French phoneticians and spelling- reformers, Paul Passy, employed sound-transcription exclusively for a year in the ficole Normale in Paris, obtaining such excellent results in pronunciation that his government established experimental sta- tions in three of the higher schools of Paris, in order that the purely phonetic method for first instruction in English might receive a thorough test. And, if I am rightly informed, transcription has also been used successfully in the public schools of St. Louis, where reading and writing are taught English-speaking children first of all by purely phonetic texts.^
Against the use of phonetic transcription the following arguments have been brought forward. I will enumerate them, although I do not share all the doubts which they express.
1. The best signs ever invented are but dead characters, to which the living sound, as it passes from the lips of the teacher to the ear of the pupil, does not adhere.
2. Considerable time and much practice are required to make the pupil conversant with the sound-value and the intent of the individual signs, to say nothing about affording him ease in their application.
3. Phonetic transcription means an overburdening of the pupil with material that must later be discarded.
4. Which system of phonetic transcription shall be adopted? There are so many, alas ! And even the best of them all, that of the Association Phone'tique, is not without serious objections.
5. All phonetic systems have adopted, besides diacritical signs, various letters of the native alphabet. With those familiar signs the pupil unconsciously associates the sound-value which they previously had for him. And this does not meet the purpose of the phonetician ; for if French qui be transcribed by ki, groiipes by grup, German dou
^ Silver, Burdett & Co. have published "Ward's handy " Phonetic Cards, to accompany the Rational Method in Reading," on which phonetic signs are printed in clear type.
PRONUNCIATION 43
hy /on, itnb by tinf, and roer by ver, it is to be feared that the pupil will be led astray in his pronunciation, especially by the vowel signs.
6. If the pupil use a phonetic text he remains quite in the dark as to the actual formation, the grammatical form, and the composition of any word. He has no conception of endings or inflections, and must later learn much that is absolutely new when real words and sentences begin to appear.
7. For a long time after its abandonment phonetic transcription remains an obstacle to the proper acquisition of the conventional orthography. The greater accuracy and fluency a pupil has shown in reading and writing phonetic texts, the larger his percentage of mistakes in dictations in historical orthography. He will be obliged to strain every nerve to forget thoroughly what for weeks he has been so busily engaged in learning.
Various teachers who are advocates of the reform movement in all its essentials have proposed compromises v/hich are well worth our attention.
1. Let Readers be introduced which print the phonetic transcrip- tion directly below the foreign-language text, if necessary, through half the book. After six months, throw aside as superfluous these crutches which are so desirable for the home preparation of the pupil, and refer in all doubtful cases to the vocabulary, in which the pronunciation of each word is given in phonetic transcription. Or —
2. Employ phonetic transcription on the blackboard, and use Victor's or Rambeau's phonetic charts, but keep the reading matter of the First Book free from phonetic transcription. Or —
3. Let the first selections in the Reader be reproduced in an appendix in phonetic transcription, together with a systematic com- parison of the sounds, illustrated by paradigms, and with a clear explanation of the phonetic signs. This course has been followed in Newson's Firsf German Book, whose phonetic appendix reproduces in transcription the first ten sections, and in Newson's Fifst French Book, where the first thirty-six pieces are printed according to the norm of the Association Phone'tique, together with a vocabulary clas- sified according to the grammatical categories. These same words again appear under the superscriptions Les Sons ct leur Signes, arranged phonetically, with the appropriate sign before each. Or —
4. Instruction in the first weeks should be restricted to oral prac- tice. Later on in the course, after the use of books has been begun.
44 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
strict attention should be paid that the pupil apprehend every word and sentence first by ear, that the word be correctly pronounced and orally practiced, before he be allowed to open to the text and com- pare the written word with the spoken.
If I may be allowed to speak of my own experience as teacher, and mention the proposal I have made at several German teachers' conferences, I would recommend for American schools a method which provides that the pupil shall not receive a text-book until after about eight weeks of study, during which time the instruction is exclu- sively oral. When I was teaching elementary English in Berlin I made a phonetic transcription to assist pupils in home preparation. This transcription, which was distinct and easily intelligible, reproduced, in idiomatic pronunciation as exactly as possible, the pieces to be practiced. The pupils needed only to master this so far as to read, without difficulty 'and without mistake, the texts so written. After about two months I placed before them, in the traditional orthog- raphy, the first of the pieces which had been memorized, gave them their books, and had a neat copy of the piece made. For the next day a dictation exercise based upon this piece was announced, and the pupils were asked to memorize at home the actual spelling of the words. They were allowed to correct the first test themselves, and not until the second attempt did I make the corrections and mark the result. I admit that here and there a syllable as written was phonetically right but orthographically wrong; yet I can maintain with all truthfulness that year after year, as often as the experiment is repeated, I am agreeably surprised to find that even in the first tests no material detriment to the correct orthography has resulted. Theoretically it is quite justifiable to fear lest a several weeks' use of phonetic signs prove fatal to later written exercises. But experi- ence has shown me again and again that this is merely a theoretical fear which the facts in the case contradict.
And if it should actually happen that the pupil should write pret7iit instead of premier, fzva instead of fois, a few added dic- tations will furnish him with the desired orthographical accuracy. And should a slip in the spelling of a foreign language be regarded as of such great importance ? ^ Are not fineness and correctness of
1 Few foreigners can boast of having spoken and written French with such elegance of expression as Frederick the Great, and yet how many orthographical mistakes are to be found in his French essays and poems !
PRONUNCIATION 45
pronunciation much more valuable, especially at the start ? Uncer- tainty in spelling at the outset can be corrected by exercises in dictation, but a pronunciation spoiled from the foundation can never be remedied.
Pupils beginning to learn a foreign language have a right to demand that it be taught them in the pronunciation which is regarded by the educated foreigner as the standard one. It may be objected that a certain accent will always remain from the influ- ence of the mother tongue ; that linguistic geniuses, even after a residence of more than ten years among a foreign people, are to be recognized as foreigners from their pronunciation. But there is a vast difference between a slight foreign tinge, which in spite of the best of training still clings to the alien idiom, and the grewsome mangling of language so disagreeable to the ear. If we cannot succeed in attaining perfection, we may still, by applying the right means, obtain good results and fairly approximate the ideal goal of an idiomatic pronunciation.
Long years of experience have convinced even the ablest foreign- language teachers that pronouncing a word for the pupil does not lead him to the desired goal of faultless utterance. Whenever the pupil does not succeed by simple imitation, he should receive hints which explain the character of the most difficult sounds and render their apprehension and reproduction more easy.
Here then is the opportunity to apply phonetics, and more par- ticularly sound-physiology, in instruction. The teacher must have studied this science. He must have gained from the literature bearing upon the subject ^ a fundamental knowledge of the anatomy of the organs of speech, and of sound-physiology, in order to know how sounds and tones originate ; how lungs, larynx, vocal cords, uvula, palate, tongue, nose, teeth, and lips act in producing the various symbols of speech. He must be familiar with the scientific termi- nology of the phoneticians, although he should never employ it in the class-room. It has been advised to spare the pupils all explanations
^ I would recommend, of the publications enumerated above, the elementary but .nstructive works of Hoffmann, Soames, and Hempl. Hoffmann explains the nature of phonetics, the organs of speech, and their functions ; teaches of speech- sounds, their formation, and their combination in syllables, words, and sentences. Hempl explains the nature of phonology and phonetics, the action of the organs of speech, " The Physical Basis of Speech," " Classification of Sounds," etc. He analyzes German speech-sounds, and deals in his last chapters with pitch and with word and sentence stress.
46 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
of sound-physiology, but this opinion I do not share. Much profitable phonetic instruction is within the range of the pupil's comprehension and arouses in him a lively interest. In the instruction of the deaf and dumb the work of the phonetician has achieved astonishing success ; and it was sound-physiology which finally enabled deaf and dumb pupils to read words from another's lips by watching the various positions of teeth, tongue, and lips.
IV. FIRST INSTRUCTION IN FRENCH AND GERMAN ON A PHONETIC BASIS
An article by Harnisch in Victor's Phonetische Studien'^ presents the subject of phonetics in so elementary a way that the practical teacher will not consider it beyond the comprehension of his pupils.
" It is easy to determine which organ is most important in the production of sounds. Every child knows that it has suffered pain in the throat (i.e. the larynx) when it was hoarse and could not speak. The pupil feels the larynx, he has already seen it in animals, and he defines it as the top part of the windpipe, a statement sufficiently accu- rate for school purposes. But the larynx is not open like the other parts of the windpipe, for over it are stretched the vocal cords with the glottis between. Now how are sounds formed in this apparatus ? The process is much like that which we observe, when out walking on a windy day, in the telegraph wires stretched along beside the roads. The wind sets the wires vibrating and they buzz, just as a taut cord which the child snaps with his fingers buzzes, or as the violin string which is made to vibrate by the bow. But our larynx is far more perfectly constructed than the telegraph wires, for we can arbitrarily draw together and separate the vocal cords, contract or expand the larynx. A sound can be formed, however, only by con- traction: whoever wishes to whistle must purse his lips; steam hisses when issuing from the kettle through a very small opening. If then the wind (i.e. the breath) strikes upon the contracted vocal cords, it produces a buzzing sound ; but if the larynx is wide open the breath passes through the windpipe unhindered and without sound.
" Now pronounce before the pupils the voiced tone formed in the larynx and the unvoiced sound made in the expulsion of the breath. Individual pupils repeat the experiment, then the class in chorus, and by closing the ears or by resting the fingers on the throat each can be convinced that the voiced tone is actually produced by the vibration of the vocal cords in the larynx.
1 " Die Verwertung der Phonetik beim Unterrichte," in Band IV, Heft 3.
47
48 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
"All speecli-sounds must be formed on one of these two basic ele- ments— voiced tone or breath-sound — for a third possibility does not exist. The pupils will easily discover that all sounds accom- panied by voiced tone are called voiced sounds (e.g. the s sound in dees or in the buzzing noise of bees), the others unvoiced ; and that the variety of existing speech-sounds results from the fact that the two fundamental elements are modified in many different ways by the assistance of mouth and nose.
"If the teacher pronounce both kinds of sounds alternatingly, the pupils will be glad to discover that they are able to decide the nature of each sound without difficulty. The sounds as pronounced are repeated by individuals and in chorus, and any uncertainty is at once made clear by closing the ears. By such exercises in class the differences between voiced and unvoiced sounds, between continuants and stops, become self-evident to the pupil. The sounds should be called " voiced " and " unvoiced," rather than " soft " and " hard," for the former appellations characterize the method of production much more correctly than do the latter indistinct and deceiving terms. The explanations suggested above can be made very clear, and even mildly amusing. The material for observation, and the examples, have been chosen first from the pupil's mother tongue ; an inclination to accuracy in the formation of sounds has been awakened in his mind, and the first important foundation laid for a pure pronuncia- tion. Then follows the development of the system of sounds peculiar to the foreign language to be studied."
The teacher who has studied the elements of phonetics knows the positions of the organs of speech when at rest. He knows that his pupils' organs of speech and hearing have been developed in one direction only, through the continual use of the mother tongue. In this way there has been formed a definite condition or natural posi- tion of the organs of speech, especially of the tongue, utterly differ- ent from the disposition of those of the foreigner. "In English," says Hempl in his paragraph on the basis of articulation, " the tongue, when at rest, is left flat and allowed to lie low, being more or less hollowed in front, and seldom extended to the teeth. This sluggish condition of the tongue favors wide, low, and mixed vowels: German has no such low vowels as those in Aaf, lazi\ etc. are, and but one mixed vowel. English-speaking races manage their lips and tongue quite differently from the Germans. They do not open their mouths so wide in speaking. In sounding the rounded German vowels, they do
FIRST INSTRUCTION ON A PHONETIC BASIS 49
not protrude the lips as the Germans do, and in sounding unrounded vowels they do not open the lips in a narrow slit almost to the very corners of the mouth as is done by Germans ; that is, in both cases American children leave the lips comparatively inactive. This makes all English vowels less clear and less distinct from one another than the corresponding German vowels are ; which is particularly notice- able in the case of front vowels. In English the tongue, when in action, is not made as tense as in German, nor is it drawn as far back in sounding the back vowels nor pressed as far forward in sounding the front vowels. In making German shut consonants, not only are the parts that meet more tense, but not as much surface touches ; this makes the German sounds not so muffled as the English are apt to be."
To what extent the basis of articulation in French differs from that of English is shown by Rambeau in his above-mentioned publi- cation.^
If an American student who is unused to any language but English wishes to acquire a pure pronunciation of German or French, he must first learn to exchange his accustomed basis of articulation for that of the German or Frenchman, in order that all the new sounds be produced naturally. Above all else we must strive with our American pupils for a much livelier activity of the lips, and in teaching either of these foreign languages continually warn them : You must open the mouth more ; you must round or protrude the lips more, etc. The children should be brought to feel from the first hour on, that foreign words do not consist merely of well-known sounds in new and curious combinations, but that actually new sounds must be learned and practiced, sounds whose production will often occasion them no small difificulty.
During the first stage of phonetic instruction with the aid of the accustomed sounds of the mother tongue, the teacher has had an opportunity of letting the pupils discover what sounds bring the tongue, teeth, palate, lips, etc. into play. The terms lingual, den- tal, palatal, labial, labiodental, guttural, etc. need not be mentioned ; what is of chief importance is the sound itself and not the name of it. The pupil must be brought to the point where he will under- stand exactly what is desired of him when he is asked to use this or that part of the speech-organism ; to raise the back or front of
1 " On the Value of Phonetics in Teaching Modern Languages " in Victor's Neuere Sprachen, April, 1894.
50
THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
the tongue towards the palate, to pronounce a sound in the front of the mouth, with the tip of his tongue, or farther back with the uvula.
But after instruction in the sounds of the foreign language has begun and the organs of speech have been trained, as it were, for the new idiom, then the sounds of the mother tongue should be kept as far away as possible ; otherwise the work of teacher and class will be increased, as the sure basis of articulation will be continually lost.
Everything can not be accomplished by merely pronouncing and expecting imitation. If a pupil at the piano continually plays a difficult cadence falsely after hearing us play it rightly, the desired result can not be obtained before the cause of his false playing, the faulty fingering, has been discovered and corrected. Better still, knowledge should precede ability, ba§ ^ennen follte bem c^onnen t)orau§gel)n. A simple hint from sound-physiology will do away with the faulty use of certain organs, especially of the tongue, and the mistake in pronunciation is removed.
The classification of foreign sounds as arranged on phonetic charts exercises, without doubt, a most favorable influence upon the repro- duction of the sounds by the pupil. In these charts the consonants are grouped according to their place of articulation, and the vowels arranged in the famous vowel-triangle.
^ard Palate
^ Soft Palate
(finir or lit) /^
,^ U, fboiiche or loup)
Tedh (nezje
(laitj e
If we raise the tongue toward the hard palate, the voiced tone formed in the larynx sounds as / (_/?;;/>). If we draw the tongue back and at the same time form with protruded lips a small circular opening, we have the dark vowel-sound in jo/ir and in ©d^ule. If, however, the tongue remain quiet and flat, with normal wide open- ing of the mouth, we have the a sound in dme and 9'^ame. These simple facts justify grouping the three vowel sounds in the above vowel-triangle, whose lower a angle lies in the middle of the flat
FIRST INSTRUCTION ON A PHONETIC BASIS 51
outstretched tongue, whose front / angle marks the place where the front of the tongue approaches the hard palate, and its back u angle the place where the back part of the tongue approaches the soft palate. Between the bases of articulation of i.and / lie the open a sound and the open and close e sounds, and with a position of the tongue between that of the a and ii sounds lie the open and close 0 sounds. For the sake of simplicity, I will designate open vowels by the grave accent ('), close vowels with the acute (').
In French instruction one may begin first with the a-i-u group, the three vowel sounds represented in bras, lit, loup. The position of the organs of speech necessary for the production of these vowels can be explained by the method so clearly and simply stated by Rambeau. Then the teacher pronounces the vowels with distinct articulation, has them repeated by individual pupils and in chorus ; after which exercise the words chosen for exemplification are treated in the same manner.
As may be seen from the above, the reformers have restored speaking in chorus to an honorable position, because opportunity for practice must be offered each pupil even if it is impossible to have each sound repeated separately by the forty or more members of the class. A similar course is later pursued in the repetition and read- ing aloud of sound-groups and short sentences. The timid, diffident pupil thus grows more venturesome, and comes to modulate his pro- nunciation according to that of the chorus. An attentive and delicate ear is of course a prerequisite in the teaching of such work. The teacher stands before his class as the conductor before an orches- tra, always able to specify whether it was the second violin or the first flute that played out of tune.
Then the pupil may be shown by means of the vowel series t-e-e-a-d {lit, nez, lait, la, due) how the mouth is opened wider and wider, and the position of the lips constantly changed. After these sounds have been practiced in the way above indicated, first alone and then in paradigms, the gaps between a and u can be filled up : d-o-b-ii (the vowel sounds in d?ie, port, Peau, boiiche).
With the close k sound one should guard against reference to the vowel sound in English fate or ray, which is formed quite -differently; in the pronunciation of the open e sound no trace of an /sound must be allowed to appear. Further, I have often heard it denied that Americans spoke the long b vowel with an 11 after-effect, as undoubt- edly is the case with the English (not merely an exaggeration of Sweet's). But just to make sure of the matter have the word beau
52 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
pronounced, and even if the ear of the teacher has received but slight training in phonetics, he will detect something strange in the enuncia- tion of the word, something which sounds like a gentle echo of u. Hence it cannot be too strictly insisted on that the pupils pronounce the French vowels as simple sounds, and with very distinct articulation.
In practicing the vowel scale between a and u {am and boiiche), have the children establish the fact that the lips are more and more rounded and protruded as they go on. And when finally the most difficult vowel sounds are to be practiced, like i't in wie and 7-iie, cita- tion of the fact that / and il have the same basis of articulation will be helpful ; the children are called upon to pronounce / and at the same time to place the lips in position for ?/. The resultant sound will be the desired il. The correct French // sound is often missed because the lips are not sufficiently protruded and rounded as if for whistling. A pencil placed between the puckered lips will often pro- duce the necessary rounding and closeness.
E and d, also, are produced at the same place in the mouth and with identical position and shape of the tongue. The different posi- tion of the lips occasions the difference in sound. Have e spoken and at the same time the lips rounded as in the pronunciation <?, and the result will be o {jiccud). If the e sound is pronounced with the lips placed for o, we obtain the open o sound.
The teacher now practices the sound-scale d-o-o-u forwards and backwards, then the paradigms ane,JJeur^ nceud, rue. The indistinct e sound (p) which occurs in ;«<?, tc, se, k, ce, que, the prefix re, may be defined and practiced as a short close o sound. Accordingly the vowel-triangle in its complete form would appear as follows :
(/inlr) i u- (une) yUfjour)
I y >. \ (3) [Que) X ' ■'
('")
61 (arne)
I must content myself with these simple suggestions regarding vowels, and for all that concerns training in French diphthongs, nasals, and consonants refer to the phonetic hints which the teacher will find in the publications of Passy, Rambeau, and Beyer. As a
FIRST INSTRUCTION ON A PHONETIC BASIS 53
matter of practical experience, I discovered during my instruction at the Horace Mann School that the distinction between voiced and un- voiced consonants {jnaison and sofi) occasioned small trouble, and that the reputedly difficult pronunciation of gagtier, bouillir, vieille, bataille, proved less of a stumbling-block than did the French vowels. Even after the complete sound-system has been thoroughly practiced and reading begun, advocates of the reform movement generally open the recitation-period with a phonetic drill and spend a few min- utes in the articulation of single sounds, just as the singing master has his more advanced pupils run through the scale, and as in piano practice finger-exercises are often repeated. Such drill may be varied and made interesting by taking as paradigms French Christian names, systematically classified according to their sounds, and at another time by choosing geographical names with the help of a map of France. The vowels given in the vowel-triangle, and the nasals, are all represented in such a list as Lille, Pyrenees, Calais, Marne, Chalons, Bordeaux, Limoges, Tours, Na77iur, Meuse, Meurthe, Le Alans. Lyon, Amiens.
Phonetic training in elementary German instruction should follow similar lines, and abundant suggestions are offered in the above- mentioned literary helps, especially Hempl, Victor (^German Pronun- ciation, Practice and Theory), and Hoffmann; besides these I would mention Walter Rippmann,^ LLints on Teaching German (London, 1899) and A. \V. Spanhoofd, although his book, Das Wesentliche der dcutschen Grammatik, offers only a short phonetic introduction.
When a teacher in Germany is trying to train his pupils in as pure a pronunciation of English as possible, he tells them : " Protrude the lower jaw somewhat ; try to speak as far back in the mouth as pos- sible, thicken the tongue, open the mouth as little as possible, and chew your words." That is nothing else than instruction in putting the organs of speech into the right position for speaking English. Such hints assist greatly in the acquisition of an idiomatic pronunci- ation. In like manner the teacher who would instruct English-speaking pupils to pronounce German should address them somewhat as fol- lows : " English as well as German vowels are produced when the voiced tone, originating in the larynx and passing out through the mouth, finds the organs of speech wide enough open for it to escape
1 Rippmann has also published two articles of special interest to the teacher of French: Hints on Teaching French (London, 1898) and On the Early Teaching of French (Macmillan's School World, beginning in No. i).
54 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
without friction. But the diversity of sounds in the various vowels results from the different positions of tongue and mouth. In your native language the tongue is far more active than in German, and the mouth far less. Therefore, pay particular attention to the position of your teacher's mouth, and note how he moves his lips when he pronounces German sounds. When you imitate them, keep the tongue as quiet as possible : when you are pronouncing a, for example, it must be quite flat ; do not raise it toward the palate. Try holding the tongue down with your finger or with a pencil, just as the physician does when you have a sore throat and he wishes to look deep down into it. Now pronounce after me German a very distinctly and loudly."
I have thus shown by a single example what pains the phonet- ically trained teacher takes to have his pupils pronounce correctly the sounds which are at first entirely foreign to them. If the pupils have observed what is important in the production of these sounds, the success hoped for will not be wanting. We develop the German sound-system with the pupils as we have done above in the case of French. We pass around the vowel-triangle and practice the various series of sounds: a-i-ii; u-i-a ; a-d-e-i; i-e-'a-a ; a^o {^QX\()-6 (^Q\t)-ii ; ii-o-b-a ; a-d-o-ii ; u-o-o-a ; i-l'i-ii ; v-u-i ; e-'o-d ; o-d-e ; a-'o-b ; b-d-'d.
I should perhaps have mentioned in my discussion of French vow- els that the short vowels must be drilled as well as the long ones, and in German it is to be especially noted that the short sounds are much more open than the long sounds. We must then actually practice a close and an open /, a close and an open /V, a close and an open u^ etc., as the following examples sufficiently illustrate : ©til, ftill, Sriiber, §utte, Sruber, 'DJiutter. After the German vowels and diphthongs have been practiced alone and in paradigms, repetition in following recitation-periods may be varied and rendered more inter- esting by proper names taken from history, or by geographical names read from the map. Here follow a few groups, classified systematically according to the vowel series :
jVriebrid) ©diiller, %\)txt\t, 2Serner, i?dtl)e, 2Igatf)e, §an§, ^onrab, /Dora, Sutler, Sruno, 3ftiibiger, 9JiiiUer, ©oetljc, Corner.
2Bten, 3""/ S^Gefer, .feffen, 5Jial)ren, ^arntl)en, Safel, Hamburg, 3Roftod, ©onnu, Ulm, 5Rul)r, 2:l)Urtn9en, 9J^iind)cn, 5^i3fen, i^brfelberg.
3Jiain, Sai)ern, SSeimar, 3)^eijer, 3Rcufe, §aujer, Soi^enburg, Saufi^, ^reSlau.
FIRST INSTRUCTION ON A PHONETIC BASIS 55
In the last series I have attempted by the juxtaposition of the same sounds in differing orthography to indicate that ax, ax), ei, ei), have exactly the same sound, although this will be denied by South Germans, who distinguish between Saib (loaf of bread) and Seib (body). According to Victor and the resolutions of the Con- gress for Pronunciation which met at Berlin in 1898, such a dis- tinction is no more admissible than a corresponding distinction in the pronunciation of the eu sound, whether it be orthographically represented by eu, ixxx, or oi.
It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that the pupil must not try to get along with the sounds of his mother tongue, but that he must change the position pf his organs of speech for the new sounds, and under the guidance of Jiis teacher train them with this end in view. The teacher should not allow vowel sounds to be pronounced as exact equivalents in nie and k/iee, in did) and ray, in mir and mere, in ^irt and d/rf, in Gljte and ai'r, in ,§err and /icr, in \o and so, in D^r and ore, in bit and Jo, in '^•xi^ and /ooJ. He must not allow the vowel of the final syllable in such words as 'ipapa, 2lnua, 2)oftor, to be spoken as a very weak, indefinite, and colorless sound after the English analogy. Let him demonstrate to the children that the Ger- man r sound, in contrast with the English, is not combined with the preceding vowel, is to be spoken by itself, is to be produced by vibra- tions of the uvula, and hence can exercise no influence upon the pronunciation and coloring of the preceding vowel.
The teacher whose ear has been phonetically trained will under- stand the too open pronunciation of his English-speaking pupils when dealing with the z and // sound (td^ bin bie 5[Ruttcr). He will know too that the German diphthongs, ci, axi, eu or oi, are pronounced very differently from the corresponding English sounds. It does not suf- fice that German eu or ciu be pronounced as oj in oyster. One might as well allow in the pronunciation of the indefinite vowel-sound in Ger- man prefixes and unaccented syllables ((55ebet, £ebcn, ©ebaiiten, betriiben) the corresponding English sound in falk^n, endeavor, r<?duce. If care- ful attention be but paid to the real German pronunciation of the first vowel element of the diphthongs mentioned, the desired results will follow.
Many a pedantic German teacher who wishes to be more orthodox than the Pope believes it his duty to have intervocalic I) pronounced (feljen, jieljen, bliil)en), while the phoneticians on the other hand teach that t) between vowels is absolutely silent, but that in compound
56 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
words, as in §of)ett, where English-speaking children show a decided inclination to let it fall, it must be distinctly heard. Do not attempt to have final b or b pronounced voiced as they are written, but as / and /: unb (««/), Seib {Leip), ©olb {Golt), 2Sei5 {Weip), ^^elb {Helt).
In the pronunciation of the German ro do not allow the English character to exercise any influence, nor the pupils to be confused by the printed sign ; luieber is to be spoken with initial v^ not with initial u\ in such a word as fci^tuarg, the pupil may just as well believe that it is written fl)iiart§.
Nowhere is historical orthography a greater hindrance than in the pronunciation of German g. If the teacher cannot decide to make general use of phonetic transcription, let him in this one case at least recommend that the pupils jot down a ts at every 5 of their printed texts, and practice industriously in the few minutes devoted to pho- netic drill such sound-exercises as jraanjig Seifis^ grDitfdjern luftig in
ben ^"'eis^^'
Unusual difficulty is occasioned by the ch sounds in ic^ and (x^. First let them be practiced alone, at the same time indicating the exact place of production ; the consonant sound in ic^ as far front in the mouth as possible, in ac^ far back at the uvula ; reference to the similar sound in Scotch loch, or even the imitation of snoring, might prove profitable. The former sound, produced in the front of the mouth, appears quite naturally after German front vowels, and the latter, whose place of articulation lies far back, only after back vowels. This will be perfectly intelligible to the pupils. Then denote by a heavy line passing through the vowel-triangle the bound- ary between the two pronunciations :
Many other matters of detail in the pronunciation of German can- not here be discussed. For these one should read in Victor, Hempl, Soames, and Rippmann how to treat the pronunciation of ng, so
FIRST INSTRUCTION ON A PHONETIC BASIS 57
that finger shall not sound like finger; what is to be heeded in the articulation of qu ; how much lighter, simpler, and smoother the Ger- man I sounds than the thick English /, which is produced deeper in the mouth, and in whose production the tongue is much more active. That initial [t and fp are to be pronounced shp and sht has been already stated. With regard to this latter question, compare August Dietrich's Uber die Aicssprache voft sp, st, g tmd ng. Ein Wort zur Verstandigimg zwischeji Nbrd and Si/d (Leipzig).
The pronunciation of medial and final g is still an open question, and one need not be too pedantic regarding r, for in the every-day conversation of educated Germans the uvular r is ordinarily heard, while in rhetorical utterance and on the stage the trilled r is more customary. Even in the most recent edition of his famous pamphlet Wie ist die Aussprache des Deutschen zu lehren ? Vietor allows ©tege, betrogen, 2Bagen, inogen to be pronounced both with the usual g sound and with voiced / (voiced guttural fricative) ; ©ieg, %o.%, ^ug, both with final k (©ief, %al, 3ii0 ^^^ with the unvoiced Scotch ch sound (Siec^, %a6:), 3"cfj).
As a final point in the discussion of pronunciation I would touch upon the glottal stop, which does not exist in French and is not vigor- ously spoken in English. Hempl defines it as follows : " The glottal stop is produced by stopping the breath in the throat and exploding it there, as one often does in making an unusual effort, as in pushing. It is generally employed in German before initial stressed vowels : 'i(^, 'auc^, 'alle, $IBanb'u{)r, 'ab'anbern, but Germans never write it and are generally unaware of its existence. In books on phonetics it is sometimes expressed by ' as above."
After the principal difficulties of German pronunciation have been
discussed in class, and the pupils are familiar with the foreign
sounds, an occasional reference to the phonetic charts will suffice to
.recall what has been emphasized during the first recitation-periods
regarding the articulation of individual sounds.
In my review of French phonetic instruction I presented the vowel system in tabular form, and I will submit the German consonants to a similar arrangement. The pupils must know that in the produc- tion of consonants the breath, by a contraction of the organs of speech, or by their more or less vigorous contact, escapes with a grating sound {s, z, /, v) or with a weak or strong explosive sound (b, p, g, k). In the former case we speak of fricatives, in the latter of stops. If the voice be heard with the sound, whether it be
58 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
produced at the lips, the teeth, or the palate, we have voiced con- sonants. But if the vocal cords remain open, as in expiration, so that they produce no tone, and consequently nothing but the sound produced in the mouth is audible, we have unvoiced consonants {ss, /, J>, k).
In the accompanying table the German sounds are represented — (i) in the vertical columns according to the place of articulation; (2) in the horizontal columns according to the form of articulation, the breath passage being
(a) completely closed, or
(b) considerably narrowed, or
(c) left comparatively open.
Characters representing voiced sounds are denoted by a dot above the consonant in question, as b, % it), g, etc.
/
\
FIRST INSTRUCTION ON A PHONETIC BASIS
59
CO
+->
a
0 o
CA
o O
a
a
<u O
00
bo
s
03
<D
&,
s
X
W
C
en
C O
c
3
o
c«
c S
;-• (U
O
O
0)
o
•4-* <l>
u
|
< O a |
'eins (Glottal Stop) |
|||||
|
w H < O CO |
C o OS |
•w c |
Back Consonants Soc^ ] fag en voiceless | voiced |
(vibration of uvula) |
||
|
w H <: ►J < Q fi < |
Front Consonants voiceless ] voiced |
|||||
|
H |
"St <n |
on. e |
rot ((Sr)re) (vibration of tongue point) |
o |
||
|
Cm |
3 '*^ |
If •s |
^3 |
|||
|
(a) With Closure (Stopped Consonants) |
(b) With Narrowing (Narrow Consonants) |
O i a- H |
V. THE ANALYTICAL-INDUCTIVE
METHOD
The first two weeks will suffice to put foreign-language instruction on the phonetic basis presented in the previous chapter. The first period is ample for instruction in the organs of speech and their functions, with examples taken from the sounds of the mother tongue. In the second period the differences in the way of produc- ing sounds in the new language are illustrated, and the French or German system of vowels virtually constructed. The third period serves for repetition and practice of paradigms. In the fourth the vowel system is completed, and the pupils are familiarized with the phonetic chart, or, if such charts are not at the teacher's disposal, with the vowel-triangle reproduced on the blackboard. In the fifth period the diphthongs and nasal vowels are added. The sixth and seventh (and perhaps the eighth) suffice for the study of consonants, regarding which much has already been learned while practicing the assigned paradigms. Those who introduce phonetically transcribed texts must, of course, devote further time to drill on transcription. If the number of pupils in the class is not too large, if the ability of the children and the skill of the teacher are of the average grade, practice on the first reading-piece can begin with the third week.
I need scarcely mention the fact that this preliminary course in pronunciation can be more quickly and successfully finished with younger pupils than with older. The earlier a child takes up a for- eign language, the more adaptable will his organs of speech be, the more surely will the teacher succeed in obtaining an accurate imitation of the sounds and sound-groups pronounced, the less instruction will he find necessary regarding the position of the organs of speech. The older beginners are, the more accustomed are their organs to the sounds of the mother tongue, the more unwieldy for training in the articulation of foreign sounds. And to this natural awkwardness must be added the embarrassment so evident in older pupils. But the child of ten years or less endeavors with the greatest naivete to imitate exactly every peculiarity of the foreign sounds.
60
THE ANALYTICAL-INDUCTIVE METHOD 6l
The paradigms should be oftentimes varied. Variety is the spice of Ufe. In addition to the names of persons and places suggested in Chapter IV, foreign words for the things which the pupil sees in the class-room may be chosen as suitable material. In this way he becomes acquainted during the first two weeks of French instruction with such expressions as porte, fenetre^ chaise, table, banc, livre, cahier, plume, crayon, papier, eficre. At another time the teacher chooses the parts of the body as paradigms for pronunciation. And apparently without intention, but really with a view to systematic increase of the student's vocabulary, he employs in the first class-periods such expressions as bicn, prononcez, repetez, encore une fois, la classe, levez- vous, asseyez-vous, fermez vos livres, oiivrez vos cahiers, donne-fnoi ton livre, otivre la fenetre, ferme la porte, attoitioti, la lefo?t est fi)iie. These phrases, at first translated by the teacher, are soon quite familiar to the class. At each new period a few of this sort are added and retained, even though they are not written on the board or memorized as a vocabulary. Such expressions gradually supplant the mother tongue in the instruction, and form the first steps of the path which leads to the ideal towards which we must of set purpose continually strive : to teach the foreign language through the medium of the for- eign language. It is of greatest value to idiomatic pronunciation that mouth and ear be not continually concerned with the mother tongue in addition to the foreign. And I would add: bring your pupils as much and as early as possible into the foreign environment. In the first week let the teacher of German greet his class with the words ©Uten 9Jton3cn, i^tnber. The class will be eager to learn the reply. Expressions such as fprid) louter ; fprid) bciitlidjer; bcti^ i[t i*i(f)= tig ; ba^ ift faffd) ; luer Uieif? z^ be[[er ? uerftcl)[t \i\\ mid) ? foimn ^w bie Srafel, ttimm bte Sretbe ; linfrf) ba§ incc], should be used, but not pedantically analyzed. When it comes to spelling let the French or German names of the letters be used. But let it not be forgotten that the sounds are the starting-point of instruction, and not the alphabet with its letters.
If a French or German atmosphere is to envelop the children com- pletely in their study of the foreign language, the questions may be addressed to them under French or German names, and the younger children especially will gain much pleasure if Dorothy Taylor is called in the German period X)orotl)ea ©djuciber, or John Carpenter in the French hour Jean Charpentier. And they will be found very ready to continue with one another the use of such foreign phrases.
62 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
Wherever a room is set apart for foreign-language teaching it should be suitably decorated. In a French class-room the children should see on the walls the map of France and a plan of Paris, typical scenes of life in the capital, and portraits of national heroes and statesmen ; in a German class-room, maps of Germany and Prussia, a plan of Berlin, characteristic pictures of rural landscapes, and likenesses of the great men of affairs. Often then, when the pupil's attention begins to flag, the teacher can refer to one or another of these pictures which has some connection with the day's lesson, and such apparent digressions can be made linguistically profitable.
This may even be done with the introduction to the first German reading-piece, the study of which begins with the third week. For thus early do w-e busy the pupils with connected reading matter, instead of with disconnected sentences, whose thought-content — if there be any — has been patched together of the most heterogene- ous materials. Naturally the first piece must be elementary in nature. It should be as easy of comprehension with regard to its subject- matter as it is linguistically simple. And it must be short, at most five or six printed lines, so that a study which proceeds step by step may not weary the class and arrest its progress too long.
The reformers have often heard the reproach that they sw-amp the young beginner with a veritable flood of difficulties, presenting as they do in a single piece so much grammatical material. But is this reproach justified ? Everything new is at first equally hard for the pupil. He acquires the most difficult form of a French irregular verb with as great ease as he learns le ttiur — the wall. But these first reading pieces should be kept as free as possible from uncom- mon linguistic phenomena, irregularities, and syntactical deviations from English usage.
In order to offer simple material and to increase the difficulties slowly and systematically, I recommend that the chosen texts be edited — with skill and tact, of course — in such a way as to sim- plify, though not do violence to, the expression. Charming stories, even from the standpoint of diction, may be written without subordi- nate clauses. And one can even smuggle in a certain amount of suitable material for that chapter of the grammar which is to be illustrated by the piece in question.
Even if the content be simple it need not be exactly childish, and I should not recommend such " text-books for beginners " as deal with
THE ANALYTICAL-INDUCTIVE METHOD 63
nursery rhymes, riddles, and stories of the play-room. It is almost self-evident from what field the material for these first tales should be chosen. They should awaken an understanding of the people and country whose language is to be studied. And what is it, among all the facts of French and German history, that most attracts the young mind ? The magic force of personality. The personality which is placed in the foreground of the first story must assuredly be imposing. One of the best and most popular of recent French text-books for German schools ^ begins with the following anecdote, which satisfies almost all the above-mentioned demands : Un jour, avaiit une bataille, Henri qiiatre dit a ses soldats les mots : Je siiis voire roi, vous etes Francais, voila Vennemi. Si vous perdez vos enseig?ies, regardez man panache^ il sera toujour s sur le chemin de r/iowieur et de la victoire.
Simple as this short historical anecdote is, the children cannot feel that they are being bored with worthless nonsense. Henry IV was and is a French national hero. Let his portrait be shown the class, and the supplementary phrase // etait roi de France added by the teacher. With very easy and short French sentences, which do not need to be especially practiced, the teacher points to the por- trait, to the map of France, to the capital where Henry IV resided ; he may perhaps show Navarre, and the battle-field of Ivry, where the above exhortation is said to have been delivered. In this way an interest in the first piec^ and its hero has been aroused, and the foundation laid for an understanding of the thought-content. Drill on the piece then takes place in the following manner: the books are closed, the teacher pronounces the phrases slowly and with very distinct articulation, and determines the meaning of each individual word. Then he reads the French text through again, and has it repeated by the most skillful pupils, and by the class in chorus. In this way during the period half of the piece is so thoroughly prac- ticed that the pupils have it fairly well memorized when at the close of the recitation the books are opened and the printed characters confront the eye.
To strengthen the understanding and to ofifer more object-matter for the first chapter of grammar the teacher should retell the story, using simple French sentences in which the words of our text reappear in new linguistic or grammatical relations to each other. These sentences can then be translated into the student's mother
1 O. XiVoriz^ Elementarbuch der franzosischen Sprache, Ausgabe B, Berlin, 1901.
64 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
tongue and repeated by him. It is very simple by means of such a text to obtain the present tense of itre, for the teacher in pointing to the portrait of the king uses the expression Vhoinme est Henri quatre, the story itself introduces the forms je stiis and vous etes, and during the instruction of the first five weeks expressions like fioiis sommes a Vecole and tu es un eleve have probably been used. In the French sentences which retell the piece, and which in Ulbrich's book follow the text, occurs the phrase les Frangais sont sur le chemin de r/iontieur, or les soldats du roi sont sur le chemin de la victoire. Hence after studying anecdote and sentences it is easy to group on the blackboard six sentences which contain the desired system, je suis, tu es, il est, nous sommes, vous etes, ils sont.
It may also seem to many teachers absolutely necessary to discuss declension at the outset. It is well known that there is no real nominal inflection in French, but the grouping of la victoire, de la victoire, a la victoire, la victoire, can be made without difificulty if the student be referred to de Vhonnejir and a ses soldats.
And the piece offers object-material for the three forms of the definite article, as well as for both forms of the indefinite article. Nouns are presented in the singular and the plural, as are also a few important verbal forms and the possessives ses, moji, voire, vos. These should be carefully memorized, and later, when similar or homogeneous forms occur, the memory of the earlier occurrences can be revived, to serve as necessary, steps in the construction of grammar. But it would be inadvisable to place every individual word of this short story under the critical microscope, to lay stress upon the antithesis implied in avant or upon dit as an irregular verb, or to make use of // sera as the starting-point for a drill on the future tense.
Since Ulbrich, as has been already mentioned, is a " moderated reformer," there follow in his text-book, after the series of French sentences, about a dozen phrases in the mother tongue, which the pupil is to translate at home and thus discover whether he has prop- erly mastered the grammatical part of the chapter. Victor will not listen to the inclusion of such exercises, and I believe that even the "moderated reformers" will drop this translating into the foreign language the moment that exercises and themes are no longer demanded by the authorities as tests of knowledge.
We lay much greater stress upon the questions in the foreign language about the content of the piece. These are not intended
THE ANALYTICAL-INDUCTIVE METHOD 65
to "put the teacher under tutelage." On the contrary, he is entirely justified in conversing with pupils in his own way regarding the subject-matter of the text. But by these questions appended to each lesson the pupil becomes conversant with the use of the interroga- tives and with French interrogative word-order. He can have the questions read to him at home and thus recapitulate the conver- sation held in class. And they afford him a foundation for profitable written exercises consisting of French answers to French questions.
Initial drill in the first reading piece must also furnish an intro- duction to correct word and sentence accent. Just as the first sentence of the text formed the starting-point for grammatical instruction, it now gives an opportunity to refer to the essential differences between English and French accent. The stress on the final syllable of words should not be exaggerated too much, as the pupils will then experience difficulty in holding the word-stress in abeyance for the sake of the principal accent at the end of the sen- tence, the so-called sentence-stress. Let the teacher insist on the pupil's raising his voice sharply at the comma which closes the introductory clause, thus producing the singsong effect so character- istic of spoken French.
Those teachers who are seriously concerned in obtaining a solid foundation in correct pronunciation and delivery have drilled the first sentence until the class has thoroughly memorized it. It has been translated piece by piece and as a whole, enunciated by the teacher and by the class, read aloud and again repeated by the class, and the retelling of the text in new words has caused these individual vocables in their proper signification to become the actual intellectual property of the pupil, so that he knows how to interpret them aright, even if they appear in new connection. The new method abandons exact memorization of words, formerly so universally demanded: the pupils learn them by actual use, for the most part in the class-room. And if the teacher wishes to discover the actual size of a pupil's vocabulary, let him not attempt a stupid rehearsing of words that occurred in former periods, but let him converse with his class in the foreign language. This has the advantage of obliging the pupil to employ certain forms of desired words in definite grammatical con- nection. By the way in which he puts a question the teacher can require an answer that will give him an insight into the pupil's familiarity with the words and his understanding of the grammatical rules.
66 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
In spite of this the " moderated reformers " have not done away with the vocabulary note-books which from time immemorial have been in use in German schools. On the contrary we lay great stress on the careful keeping of neat word-lists, and have the first entries made under our personal supervision. From time to time these note-books are called in and corrected just as carefully as are the written exercises or the dictations. The word-list is for our pupils, from the lowest grades on, a savings-bank in which every newly acquired coin is carefully stored away.
In the retelling of the texts, in the questions put by the teacher, and in other exercises, the use of words not occurring in the set pieces cannot be entirely avoided. During the first weeks, when other matters are of supreme importance, many words and examples are used and translated without being too carefully memorized. Gradually, however, attention is directed toward the acquisition of a trustworthy vocabulary, and the teacher writes new words with their meanings upon the blackboard, in order that at the close of the period the pupil may enter them in his word-lists. These carefully kept note-books should accompany the pupil through the school course as unfailingly as does his First Book. In them the pupil is concerned with nothing but the primitive form of the word. To apply and prac- tice the other forms is the duty of the exercises in conversation. We no longer need to run through the declensions and conjugations — once the greatest delight of teachers.
From Max Walter's book on French class-instruction we learn how to practice without stupid manipulation the cases of nouns and pro- nouns, the persons, number, tenses, and modes of verbs ; how to bring life and activity into the class-room. Must we forever declaim /e me suis defe/idu, tu fes defetidii, il s'est defendu, thus remaining in the grip of a method so conducive to deplorable mistakes in accent ? May we not preferably offer a short dialogue containing all the forms, the presentation and practice of which we wish to insist upon .''
Comtnent fappelles-iu ?
Je tn^appelle comme mon pere.
Et toil pere ? Coi>i»iciit s'appelle-t-il?
II s^appelle comme moi.
Comment vous appelez-vous tons les dejix ?
Nous Jious appelons Vim coi?ime Vantre.
The reformers have often been censured for neglecting: written work in order to indulge in frequent oral exercises. I admit that we
THE ANALYTICAL-INDUCTIVE METHOD 6/
begin to write somewhat later than was customary during the old regime, but the moment that the pupil makes use of his text-book, and is acquainted with the historical orthography, exercises at home and in class are begun. The first writing corrected by the teacher is noth- ing more than a simple dictation of the unchanged text of the first reading piece which the pupil has memorized. Its main purpose then is to aid the student in acquiring orthographical accuracy, although it is also profitable for him to hear the words clearly enunciated. The second written test to be corrected by the teacher is dictation in which the text has been somewhat changed. The pupil should be advised to pay careful attention and not write down a single word whose significance he does not understand. The third dictation gives the story as it has been amplified and retold, and employs grammatical forms which do not occur in the text itself, but which have been sufficiently practiced by the pupil.
Next it might be well to dictate in the foreign tongue both the questions and the answers which have been used in class in connection with the reading. Then, as another exercise, only the questions are dictated, which the pupils must answer, of course in complete sen- tences. These answers will at first keep almost slavishly to the wording of the memorized text, but gradually the questions should become freer in scope, so that the pupil is drawn farther and farther away from it. But even then the exercises are essentially a more or less exact reproduction of what he has retained from the conversa- tions which have been held in class.
Thus far dictation has predominated, and as a matter of fact it has been through the efforts of the reformers that such exercises have been restored to the position of honor which they occupy. They afford a most valuable training for the ear. The pupil learns to catch the spoken word correctly, but at the same time he advances towards the ideal goal, that when he has left school to travel abroad he shall be able to follow intelligently a conversation, a lecture, or a theatrical performance.
In addition to this such class-room exercises lead systematically and by sound pedagogical method to the later written expression of the student's own thought. By the form of our questions in the foreign language we oblige the pupil to reconstruct the reading material with constantly increasing independence. We put questions which lie outside the actual sphere of the text and take into consid- eration what has been imparted in connection with the reading. We
68 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
ask about things which the use of a map or of a wall picture has brought to discussion in class. We renew acquaintance with matter presented in former recitation periods, and so widen the scope of these exercises that the questions become merely gentle hints for what is in the main a free reproduction of earlier reading and conver- sation. In this manner we pave the way for the coming composi- tions in the foreign language, and afford them their first really appropriate basis. He who believes that the industrious translating of set sentences from the mother tongue forms a suitable foundation for independent written expression is greatly mistaken ; but the transition from such exercises as have been described to original compositions in the foreign language is scarcely noticeable. The dictated questions become in the last analysis nothing more than outline material offered by the teacher, a trellis, as it were, upon which the thoughts of the pupil are to be trained ; a guide for his written presentation. And even this finally falls away, and there is left only the topic, which stands in a certain connection with the student's reading and is more or less discussed in class.
The final examinations often, I am sorry to say, demand trans- lations from the mother tongue into the foreign language. If the teacher wishes to prepare for these, he may occasionally put the questions for written tests in the mother tongue and have them trans- lated. Or he may dictate separate sentences for similar purpose, but assuredly not such as appear in the text-books of Ollendorff, Mei- dinger, and Plotz, of blessed memory : no hodge-podge of single sen- tences which have no inherent connection with each other or with what has been read. The text-books even of the " moderated re- formers " offer in each lesson, in addition to more important exercises, a list of sentences in the mother tongue for the purpose of transla- tion. But compare these with the chaos of phrases which I found in a well-known German text-book for American schools, published in the year igoi. I cite them verbatim and in the order in which they appear in the book : ■
I. The knight said he would like to see the new building. 2. The chil- dren work in the morning and play in the evening. 3. Please hand me the bread. 4. Is that your right or your left hand? 5. Can you see that beautiful apple-twig through the hedge of thorns ? 6. Why are the sun's rays not so warm in winter as in summer? 7. The lark sings in the air, but builds its nest on the ground. 8. The book I have in my hand is red. 9. The emperor presented a black horse to the traveler.
THE ANALYTICAL-INDUCTIVE METHOD 69
If one may speak of a central thought in connection with this conglomeration, it is solely the chapter of grammar for which these sentences afford a drill. In the expressions quoted, that is, the author of the much-used text-book was emphasizing the difference between English and German word-order. But would it not be far wiser to take material for observation and practice from a connected reading, to have all the sentences depend upon the text of this and thus be united by one central idea .-' In defense of the author it has been said in all earnestness that in translating the pupils do not feel the folly of such sentences as we teachers do. They regard them, as the author intended they should, simply as material for grammatical exercises, nothing more. And no thought of their con- tent ever enters their minds.
I can only reply : So much the worse. We should not offer our class material which arouses no thought in the more careless of the pupils, and at which the wide-awake ones poke fun. This fundamen- tal difference cannot be strongly enough emphasized. The pupil perceives the inner connection ; everything in the chapter moves within the same circle of ideas ; he notices that in these sentences it is not merely important to apply grammatical rules, but also to become familiar with the expressions and constructions of the piece. More can be taken for object-study and practice of a given chapter of grammar from a short reading of four lines than is generally sup- posed. Max Walter has shown what an abundance of exercises may be derived, for example, from the well-known anecdote of the peasant who went to the optician's for a pair of spectacles which would teach him to read. The tale may be formed into a dialogue, it may be put into the mouth of one or the other of the persons concerned ; from the dialogue a story may be invented, instead of one person several may be introduced. The teacher who has attempted such exercises not. prescribed by any text-book will be obliged to admit that they offer large opportunity for independent grammatical exer- cises in the foreign language, as well as for ascertaining whether the pupil has mastered certain forms and constructions and has learned how to apply certain rules and exceptions. For such an occasion we do not need English sentences filled with snares and laboriously pre- pared to meet the exigency of the particular case ; exercises which have been not unrightly styled "grammatical mouse-traps."
It scarcely needs mentioning that even the first pieces of the reading-book must be translated not only word for word but into
^o
THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
good English. The meaning of every word must be definitely determined, but we should also see to it that the children copy the story at home in the original and then write a clever translation of it. If great pains are not taken, expressions will be introduced which are due to the influence of the foreign language and are not standard English. And yet, as Wilhelm Miinch has remarked, every translation from the foreign language should offer instruction in expression and style in the mother tongue, and this should con- tinue up to the point when the more advanced pupil does away with all translation and the understanding of what is read is acquired entirely through the medium of the foreign language.
The short and simple stories of the first reader should be interest- ing to the pupil, and a little later he should be given such selections as afford pleasure because of their beauty of form — I mean poems. There are poems whose linguistic form is the simplest possible and which offer no grammatical difficulties even for the beginner. But the more beautiful the verse-form becomes, the larger is the number of expressions whose complete apprehension is beyond the ability of beginners. Take for example the well-known fable of La Fontaine, La Cigale et la Fourmi. Teachers desire that it be memorized in the first year of study, but at this early stage it would be false pedagogy to analyze the poem grammatically from beginning to end. Let the meaning of the words be determined, give the translation in good English prose, and then if possible read aloud a poetic English rendering in order to afford the student at least a slight esthetic enjoyment. But several constructions, together with their English equivalents, will have to be simply committed to memory and accepted without detailed explanation just as the poet has written them. We must not make a subjunctive form the excuse for a lecture on acci- dence or modal usage. If in the first months we meet the expression Louis doiize etait iin des meillcnrs rois qii'ait ens la France, it will suffice at this stage if the pupil be told: '•'■ Elle ait is a subjunctive form corresponding to die a. It occurs here in a relative clause dependent upon a superlative. We shall learn more about this after we have met other such subjunctive forms in our reading." — And do not lay too great stress upon the pupil's retaining this cursory explanation indelibly in his memory. Later reading will furnish further contributions of a similar nature, and opportunity will thus be offered to bring to mind what has been previously stated, to recall an expression formerly memorized as part of a larger whole, and
THE ANALYTICAL-INDUCTIVE METHOD 71
to compare it with new and similar phenomena. Many theorists regard this avoidance of grammatical difficulties as unpedagogic, but even the pedantic Plotz did not consider it a mark of superficiality, or a sin against the child's mind, to introduce into his first lessons side by side with the regular participles of the -er and -ir conjugations such forms ?isfait, re^ii, comifiis, all with different endings, although no mention had been made of irregular verbs or of the primitive forms fiitfe, recevoir, commettre.
For the beginner every word is at first merely a word. The ability to distinguish between regular and irregular is only gradually devel- oped. In the text chosen above, the little anecdote about Henry IV, the present of etre and the reference to case formation by means of de and a were offered so naturally and unconstrainedly that we could easily transform this material into the first chapter of grammar. But generally speaking one should guard against beginning too early with systems and classifications. First let a goodly supply of material for observation be acquired by the pupil, stored away just as it has been offered in the separate reading pieces. Much that is homogeneous will be united unconsciously. And if every now and then the teacher spends half an hour in sifting and classifying the more important phenomena on the blackboard, the pupils will be only too glad to furnish the material of which the system is to be constructed. In order to be perfectly intelligible, I shall use as an example from my own experience those forms of venir {teJiir) which had occurred in the short reading pieces of the first reader and were now sought out by the pupils or taken from memory, as it had become desirable to review the forms of the irregular verb and to bring them systematic- ally before the class:
Elle fit vciiir ses enfants. Viens^ apporle dans la ville tes joyeiix bourdonnenients . Le vohuit vient tonber jiisque sur le papier. Ce 11' est point encore celle qui ni'appartient. A tout veitant je chantais. Se tenant debont devant Ini. Re7>enant d''assez long voyage. II venait de terminer VHistoire de la guerre de Sept-Ans. Les betes fa-oces elles-menies venaiint lecher ses pieds. Un habitant de Berlin tenait sur Frederic les propos les plus mena(;ants. Maitre Corbeau tenait eti soti bee un froniage. A elle seule appartenait Vhonneur. Aucune qjii en revienne. Toute Pi/npetuo- site des Suisses vint echouer. Quand on vint lui annoncer. Maitre Renard lui tint a peu prh ce langage. Le peuple le retint. (luand la bise fut venue. Avant d'' etre parvenu aux portes du joiir. Un lion devenu vieux faisait le nialade. Qiiand reviendra-t-il?
72 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
From the forms contained in these examples, chosen from the anec- dotes, fables, and poems of the reading-book, the verb vetiir (Jenir) in all its tenses may be reconstructed. This is in a nutshell the analytical-inductive method of the reformers, and it leads, as we have seen, to systematic grammar. Knowledge thus worked over is surely more lasting and full of life than a laborious memorizing of the prin- cipal parts of the verb at a time when all irregular forms are unknown and strange. According to the old method, irregular verbs were taken up systematically in groups and illustrated by twenty or thirty sen- tences in each lesson, which were constructed with a view to offering all possible forms. In each following lesson the amount to be absorbed was increased, but the procedure remained the same. After a few weeks the tormented pupil was brought to the point where with his fellow-sufferer in Faust he could cry out : 5Ji"ir iDtrb t)on alle bem fo bumm, al§ ging' mir ein 5)iiiI)Irab im ^opf Ijcrum. Regarding the French irregular verbs and the German strong verbs one often hears the conviction expressed by teachers : " They must be so drummed into the pupil's head that they will stick ! " But in the light of the above examples it will be seen that it is possible to have the more important verbs of this class stick before we come to the unpleasant necessity of drumming. And this compilation, taken from actual practice, shows that along with the forms of the simple verb the pupil is made empirically familiar with five compounds of it, as well as with the construction of venir with etrc, and the important expressions venir /aire quelque chose and I'e/iir dc /aire quelque chose.
Naturally the first reader will not offer material in like abundance for each chapter of grammar. But what the texts themselves do not afford may be introduced here and there in the retelling of the texts or in the conversational exercises. Or these grammatical facts will soon become familiar to the pupils from the constantly increas- ing number of remarks in the foreign language which the teacher introduces into his instruction. What an abundance of irregular verb-forms is to be found in the following directions and questions of the teacher, chosen quite at random :
Asseyez-vous. Assieds-toi. Oiivre ton cahier. Ouvrez vos livres. Les livres sont ouverts. Lisez. Nous verrons. Prends la crate. Avez- voiis ce qu' il faut pour ecrire ? Ecrivez. Dites-Ie-moi. Faites-le. Va chercher to7i etui a plumes. Qu''est-ce que tu veux ? Pourriez- vous me dire . . . ? Je crains que cet eleve ne soit malade. Va le voir et demaude-lui quand il reviendra.
THE ANALYTICAL-INDUCTIVE METHOD 73
It is the duty of the teacher and a test of his skill to see that much that is typical and linguistically important is brought to the ears of his pupils and remembered by them. With no apparent thought or care he tosses to his pupils foreign-language crumbs, and they become gradually and unconsciously the permanent possession of the class.
The teacher of modern languages to-day must be rich in inven- tion and must possess the gift of improvising. His method is less dependent than it was in former days. It is furnished him only in general outline. In the details he retains much freedom, and the more actively he bestirs himself the more beneficial is his teaching. The old method was in many respects easier for the teacher. The introduction to pronunciation, reading aloud, the practicing of the reading pieces, strain the teacher's organs of speech ; and no small amount of versatility is demanded in retelling the texts and in the manifold exercises which are dependent upon this. In the conversation exercises every question must be formu- lated simply and yet with definite pedagogical purpose ; and later, in collecting and sifting the material for object study, in developing the regular and the essential, in building up a grammatical system from the abundance of disconnected phenomena, in the increasing use of the foreign language in the class-room, there is need of the best efforts which the teacher has at his command.
It has already been emphasized that conversation of an elementary nature should be practiced together with the very first reading piece, and that no recitation period should pass without such exercises in the foreign language. From the outset the pupil should be taught to notice that a modern language exists for practical application, that it is a living language in which he is to learn to express his thoughts with ever-increasing fluency. Against such conversational exercises during the first months of study, advocates of the old method have raised the objection that no actual questions can be put before the interrogative pronouns have been learned. That would be a pigeon- hole method indeed ! We no longer examine the various com- partments of grammar systematically and in the traditional order, thoroughly rummaging to-day through the contents of the first box, but on no account disclosing or using anything which lies in the mys- terious depths of the fifth or sixth. For such a course the reading pieces of our text-books are not adapted. Most of them are full of linguistic phenomena of various sorts, and a selection in other
74 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
respects suitable for the lower grades would not be discarded if there should occur in it qui'} gii'est-ce qui? or quelle? The mean- ing and case of these interrogatives, absolutely necessary for the sim- plest conversation, would be determined without necessitating any detailed account of this chapter of the grammar. Later questions will furnish other forms. De qui ? a quoi? lequel? laquelle ? are soon familiar to the pupils, and finally, in place of a half-unconscious feeling for what is right, there will be attained clear grammatical insight and conscious ability.
No longer, as in former days, do we seek anxiously to hold aloof from what is irregular until the regular has been completely mastered. Quite the contrary — even at the outset the pupil is thrown out into midstream. For only so can he learn to swim.
VI. GERMAN GRAMMAR AS TAUGHT BY
THE ANALYTICAL-INDUCTIVE METHOD
It is self-evident that the texts chosen as the foundation stones of all linguistic training must not be selected at haphazard. Why was it that the idea of beginning instruction with a reading piece, a plan which has in other cases proved so fruitful, did not in Jacotot's day come to be of lasting pedagogic importance ? Ratichius and others who laid before their pupils at the very first lesson the text of a classic author did not realize that the strength and perseverance of the student must inevitably falter before the difficulty of his task. Brevity is not the sole desideratum to be sought in the first anec- dote. If it is to serve our purpose it must produce good English in practically word-for-word translation ; it must offer, that is, no syn- tactical deviations, but merely new words. If necessary let the text be adapted and edited with this particular aim in view.
In the following unpretending anecdote I would offer such an elementary text for instruction in German :
g-riebrid) ber B'l^eite, ^bnig uon ^rcuJ5en, fam in ein fe^r !Ietne6 ®orf. (Sr mat f}ungrig, unb ein Sawer firadjle eiuige ©ier. Ser Stonia, ftagte ben SRami : „aBas l)ahc id) 511 besa^Ieu ?" — „2)rei ^aler," fagte ber $8auer. — „3)rei 2:aler?" fragte griebrid;. „©iub bie (Sier fo felten fjier ?" — Ser Sauer antrcortete : „3^etn, §err, ©ier finb nid)t felten J^ier ; i?6ntge fuib felten."
The way in which the teacher is to treat and practice this has been illustrated with such detail in the case of an analogous French piece that I can limit myself to a few hints.
The text affords sufficient paradigms for further drill on pronunci- ation (grouped according to the classification of the vowel-triangle) : 3^riebrid), fef)r, tant^ war, brac^te, 2)orf, Ijungtig, ju, unb, Jlonig. These may also be used as examples for the enunciation of a large number of consonants. If the introductory discussion of map and portrait are then taken into consideration, the following examples for diph- thongs will be gained: S)eutfd)Ianb, ^reufjen, §aupt[tabt, S3auer, ber ^rceite, einige @ier.
75
-je THE TEACHING OY MODERN LANGUAGES
Material: a map of Germany, a portrait of Frederick the Great, and a picture of some typical German village showing a group of peasants in characteristic costume.
Introduction to the thought-content. The teacher points to the map :
3Die§ i[t eine 5?arte. SSa§ i[t ba§? ®a§ ift ©eutfc^Ianb. ^c^ jeige ^reu^en. Beige ^reu|en ! 3)a§ ifl 33erlin. 2Bo i[t S3erlin? Berlin ift bie i^auptftabt t)on ^reu^en. ^reu^en gel)i3rt ju SDeutfd)Ianb. SSoju gel)6rt ^reu^en ? ©in ^iJnig regiert in ^reu^en. ©in ^bnig oon ^reu^en roar griebrtd) ber ©ro^e. 3Ser roar g-riebric^ ber ©rofje, ober ^^-riebric^ ber Broeite ? ^c^ jeige fein Silb. 2Ber ift ba§ ? •
All of these sentences, if spoken with distinct enunciation and accompanied by explanatory gestures, will be readily understood, and many of the words need not be translated. The pupil sees the objects and thus apprehends what the teacher means. The latter should of course translate each word, whenever he perceives that complete understanding has not been obtained in some other way. The sentences may be repeated by individual pupils and then in chorus, although this is not really necessary, as the main part of the instruction — the story itself — is still to follow. And this will have to be thoroughly worked over and practiced.
What profit has been derived up to this point ?
Realien. The pupils have seen the position and extent of Germany and the boundaries of Prussia, they have heard of the political unity of the states of the Empire, have learned to recognize Berlin as the capital of Prussia and the residence of Frederick the Great, and have perhaps received some notion of the homely simplicity of " Old Fritz," who on one of his campaigns entered the little village hungry.
Gratnmatical profit. Proper names without the article : 2)eulf(^= lanb, ^reu^en, 33erUn, ^-rtebric^. Masculine nouns: ber ^onig, ber SBauer; feminine: bie ^arte, bie §nuptftabt; neuter: ba§ Silb, ba§ ®orf, ba§ ©i. The pupils have now found the three forms of the definite article : ber, bie, ba§. If the teacher in retelling the story has used the expression ber 2'aler, they discover that the masculine article does not stand merely with words which denote males. The children recognize the indefinite article in ein ^bnig, ein Salter, eine ^arte, eine §auptftabt, ein 2)orf, ein ©i, ein 33ilb, — expressions which do not all occur in the piece itself, but should be employed in the
TEACHING GERMAN GRAMMAR 'j'j
retelling. Even a plural form is contained in the piece. The pupil has become familiar with several verb forms, and by a comparison of bracljte, fragte, antroortete, he gains the characteristic ending of the weak preterit. The objection may be raised that strong verbs appear in the text side by side with weak inflections ; but if the pupil com- pares fam and roar with the English forms came and was, he will see that there is a deviation from the regular tense-formation in his mother tongue as well as in the German.
I should not attempt to derive further grammatical instruction from this piece, unless it were to call attention simply to the accusa- tive form ben DJiann, and oblige the pupil to discover the nominative case of this word for himself from the analogy of ber ^onig and ber Sauer.
When the piece has been sufficiently drilled orally, let it be written on the blackboard and have the pupils add an interlinear translation. In but one phrase of this text does a word-for-word rendering offend against correct English usage. A neat copy with translation should be demanded as home preparation.
After four class-periods this first reading-piece will presumably be so well learned that every pupil can repeat it fluently with correct pronunciation and with full understanding of each individual word ; further, with the help of map and portrait he will now be able to cope with the questions put to him in German and give German answers to them. Conversational exercises on the content of the piece, participated in by the entire class, will thus result satisfacto- rily. In these exercises the pupil must demonstrate that he has actually mastered the little fund of grammatical knowledge already attained.
Many teachers will doubtless prefer to find uniform grammatical material grouped more homogeneously together in the first pieces ; for example, the nominative singular of nouns and the third person singular of the present indicative of the verb. Such ideal pieces are not easily discovered, and would ordinarily have to be specially edited for our purposes. But at times this is not necessary. There are even in poetry elementary pieces which are valuable from the teach- er's point of view. One needs but to seek.
In the following verses we have uniformly-constructed simple sen- tences, excellently adapted to illustrate the three forms of the article and the most common form of the verb, and yet in spite of its sim- plicity of expression the piece is by no means poetically worthless.
78 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
It contains quite a number of words and therefore demands a certain vocabulary before it is thoroughly studied. Those teachers who have at their disposal the famous pictures of the seasons by Holzel (Vienna) can enliven practice on this poem by concrete illus- tration.
Sie SBiefe griint, ber 33ogeI baut, Ser i^ucfud ruft, ber yJiorgen taut, Sag SSetIc|en bliif^t, bie Serdje ftngt, S)er Dbftbaiim prangt. Ser j5'i'"f)Ii"g rcin!t.
®te Sonne ftic^t, bie SRofe bliUjt, S)ie 33o[}ne ranft, ba§ SBiirmdjen gliiE)t, 35ie 2(^re reift, bie ©enfe flingt, Sie ©arte raufd^t. Ser ©ommer roinft.
SaB Saub cerroelft, bie Scfiroalbe fliel^t, S)er Sanbmann pfliigt, bie Sd)neegang jie^, S)ie 2;raube reift, bie 5lelter rinnt, ®er Slpfel lacf)t. S)er 5>erbft beginnt.
Ser ©ang cerftummt, bie 2ljt erjd)al(t, S)a§ ©dineefetb glcinjt, bag 3Batb[)orn f)allt, S)er ©c^Iittfdjuf) gleitet, ber Sd)neebaII fliegt, Sie glut erftavrt. 3)er SBinter fiegt.
Supplementary exercises. Ask for the objects (persons, animals) mentioned in the poem, using the interrogatives rocr and roaS : roaS griint? raer ruft? roer roinft? roaS oerroelft? roer pfliigt? Questions may thus be easily formulated for each line of text, and in this way German interrogative word-order as contrasted with English usage may be practiced. If it is thought desirable to devote more time to grammar, the student may be required to put all singulars into cor- responding plural forms.
The following simple verses likewise offer abundant material for practicing the first person plural of the present indicative, as well as for acquainting the pupil with many important verbs and with a few much-used substantives. No difficulty should be experienced with the expression 2Bir I)aben'§ roaljtlid) gut; it can be memorized simply as the equivalent of "we are well off," and any further grammatical explanation regarded as superfiuous.
TEACHING GERMAN GRAMMAR 79
^o§ fitcb bcr SBiJgcI
2Btr 3Sogel Ijabtn'^ mal)vli<i) gut, SOBir fliegen, Ijitpfen, fpringen. SBir jiugen frtfd) imb ir)oI)lgemut, 25a^ g-eib unb 2Balb ecflingen.
5Btr finb gejunb unb forgenfret, Unb finben [tet5, raag fc^medet. 3Bo[)in iDtr fliegen, roo'^ and) fei, S)a ift ber Sifd) gebedet.
Sft bann ba§ J^ageroerf ooHbrad^t, ©0 jie^'n xvxv in bie Sciume. 2Cir ru[)en ftilt unb fanft bie dlad)t Unb ^aOen fcf)one Siciiume.
Unb glanjet friif) ber 9J?orgenfd^etn, S)ann fd)roingen luir'g ©eftebev, 9Bir fliegen in bie 3BeIt [)inein Unb fingen Sul^enieber.
Practical Exercises in comiection with this poem. Repeat it to the children in prose form, as if only one bird were telling the story. Or retell the story in such a way that one bird is addressed by the speaker, then several birds. Thus the second person singular and plural of the verb can be ingeniously and unconstrainedly brought before the pupils and practiced. And this piece affords conversa- tional exercises which will illustrate new interrogatives most desir- ably : 9Ber \)0X e§ gut? SSa§ tun bie 9>ogeI? (the third person of the plural is distinguished from the first merely by the pronoun |ie). 2Sie fingen bie 3SbgeI? 9Ba§ finben fie ftets? 3Bo tu^en fie in ber 9^ad}t? SBann fd)rotngen fie ba§ ©efieber? 2BoI)in fliegen fie? Abundant mate- rial is offered for home preparation too, even if the translation of prescribed English sentences be excluded as a matter of principle.
The following poem is exceptionally well adapted for illustrating and practicing the use of the adjective, not in nonsensical, isolated sentences, but in connected reading which offers no syntactical difficulties.
^ic (Snttcscit
©d^raiile Siifte rae^en, SJeife ©aaten fte^en, SReid^e '^x\\d)\. ber 2Ider tragt. ©(^arfe ©id)eht flingen, 2)tuntre i*erd)en fingen, Unb bie fro[)e SCadjtet fdE)lagt.
8o THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
jyteijj'ge Srfjnittcr niallen, ©djianfe §alme fallen, Unb bie uolle &avbe loinft. SWeitiame .vtianbe dlea,en \xd) ol^n' (Snbe, 33ig bie liebe Sonne ftnft.
$Kut'ge 3Joi'fe jagen, Unb bie leeren SBagen j^itUt ber gelbe SBei^en talb. gerne Conner groUen, §o^e 'guber roUen, Unb bie lange ^eitf^e fnallt.
{^tet^'ge 5?ned)te rennen 3?ac^ ben offnen 2;ennen, SSoU roirb jcf.t bag leere §au§. Sange Sorgen TOeid;en. j^^^o^e Siebet fteigcn, SDiJiibe ©d;nitter ruljen au§.
Plotz himself could not have introduced more adjectives in any twenty of his famous sentences. And the poet employs only the most common forms of the verb ; his verses are written entirely in the present tense.
In conversational exercises dealing with this poem let the teacher formulate his questions so that the children will be obliged to apply the adjectives : 33aQ fiir ein (eine) . . . ? or 2Ba§ fiir . . . ? In retelling the story let the attributive adjectives be placed in predicate position : Sie Suft ift fd)tDii(, bie Saaten finb reif, bie Sidjeln ftnb fc^arf, ber (5d;nit= tcr ift fleifsig, etc. From the analogy of bie fro{)e 2Bad)teI (stanza i), bie nolle ©arbe, bie liebe (Sonne (stanza 2), bie leeren 2Sagen, ber geI6e SSeijen, bie lange ^eitfci^e (stanza 3), ba§ lecre §au§, bie offnen STennen (stanza 4), let the remaining adjectives and the article be practiced with nouns, thus demonstrating the distinction in the inflection of their plurals.
If it is desired to obtain as many genitives as possible in a single reading piece, the following rhymes will be found useful :
Sietittseiten
2)te ^xev bei Sofeo ift ber §a^n.
S)ie §anb bes giff^ers lenft ben ^al)n.
Gin g-reunb beg SaufeS ift ber §unb.
(gin %exl beg 3entnerg ift bag ^vfunb.
TEACHING GERMAN GRAMMAR gl
2)a3 ^ell be^ Sciren nennt man ^elj. Sag ®c^tof5 beg SJittei-g jtcrt ben ^-eli. S)ie ^raft beg 5linbeg ift nid)t gro^. ©ein 3iu^'plali ift ber 2Kutter ©c§o^.
Exercises in connection with this piece. In the conversational exer- cises ask for the modifiers, using the interrogative raeffen. SSeffen <r)anb lenft ben «i^al)n? SBcfjen gell nennt man %t\i% JQeffen ilraft ift nidjt gro^? Let the genitive forms be definitely fixed in the memory, and in retelling the text bring to the observation of the class the nomina- tive and accusative cases of the nouns.
Instead of memorizing the possessive pronouns in a systematic" classification, I should recommend that a simple story like the follow- ing be practiced in class, so that the pupil could discover the desired forms for himself :
2)ic 8tc!Dnug§f(irficu
SRuboIf imb 33ertf}a ftritten fid^, roetc^e ^arBe bie fd^bnfte fei. 3iubo(f fprad^ : „3)ieine Steblingsfarbe tft rot. 9Iot ftnb unfere SJofen int ©arten." 93ert[)a fprad) : „%A) liebe bic 5Iaue jyarOc am mctften. SieF) ben §immet an: ©eine g-art)e ift btau. 33Ian ift audj beiue I'iebUnggOlume, bag 3>eild)en." S)ev SSater aOer fpvad}: „(Suer ©treit ift luuiii^. 3llle iyarben finb fd;on. %^xz grofjte ^rad)t beiDunbern roir im Slegenbogen." 3)amit jeigte er nad^ bem §immel, too eOen ein J^evrlic^er 3legenbogen ftra^tte.
In the conversational exercises on this piece the questions can be put so ingeniously that the children cannot avoid using the possessive pronouns in their answers. In retelling the story the results of the former grammatical lesson on the genitive can be further practiced by substituting nouns for possessive pronouns,
A short reading piece can easily be found which will afford sufficient instruction for cardinal and ordinal numbers, and which will prove profitable for conversation in class. To furnish further material for the numbers, and to make the lesson clear and interesting, the teacher might count the windows of the class-room, the seats, the pupils, the pictures, papers, books, and note-books, while the ordinal numbers can perhaps be best memorized as follows : 2)u 6tft ber erfte ©djiUer, bu bift ber jraeitc. 2Qer ift ber brttte in btefer Sieil^e? ©eorg ift ber uterte Sd^iiler. '^<x\)\i felbft njeiter ! etc.
Accusative (direct) objects have already occurred in former reading pieces. The teacher may recall these by a few questions in German, and then offer further illustration of the accusative form and the
82 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
meaning of the direct object in the following poem. For verses are easiest to memorize, and are retained longest in the mind. They are to be recommended for the earlier stages, though only on the assump- tion that they are as simple in language as those here chosen.
Sttlcr^ottb ^einbc
3)er Soger fcf)ie|t ben ®eier, S)er S)af)n Derfc^IucEt ben aSurm, ®a§ 5-ifd)[eiu flief^t ben 3iei[)er, Sen Saum jcrbrid^t ber Shirm.
S)er §abicl)t fdngt bie 3::aube, Sie Sia^z l)a\d)t bie DJtaug, S)er ©pal? Derfd^mauft bie S^raube, ®er S3It^ jerftort bae S^aw^.
S)ec Si3tt)e roiirgt bie Sitnber, Ser Sdr fdllt 2)ienfdjen an, 2)ie 58tene ftid)t bie 5linber, — Ss rette fid;, luev fann.
It would be quite wrong to acquaint the pupil with the name "object" before the meaning and general idea had been rendered intelligible and derived from examples. In connection with the above piece such questions as these could be put: 2Ben fd)te^t ber ^cigcr? 2BaS cerfdjinaufl ber ©pa^? 3Sa§ ^erftijrt ber 93li^? 3Ben [ttd)t bie ?3iene? The children are obliged to answer in complete sentences and thus make practical application of the accusative object. In order to illustrate the forms of the accusative in as many ways as possible, a number of sentences in plural form can be given in the retelling of the text. A few sentences should begin with the object, to prevent the erroneous notion that the accusative may only follow the verb.
The well-known fable of the fox and the raven can be easily ren- dered in prose in such a way that each separate sentence offers an instructive example of the direct object. A series of questions as to the content of this fable will make the form and significance of the direct object clear and intelligible to the class.
®er diahc nntf ber Jitii^g
®cr ^abe f^atte einen ^dfe geftD[)[en. Saronf fud)te er fid; im SBalbe einen Saurn au'j. 9hif biefem tnollte cr ben Jtdfe nerjefjren. ©in [)ungriger tfnd)6 raollte ten 3Jaben iibcrliften unb rtef mit Uuiter ©timme : „®e[;t bod^ ben SJaben! 2(Ue SDBelt beraunbert if)n. Surd) bie <2c^bnf;cit fciner gebern iibertrifft er faft aCe
TEACHING GERMAN GRAMMAR 8^
3SogeI. 2l6er leiber befi^t er feine ©timme." Siefe SBorte li^elten ben !Ra6en. ©ogleid) roollte er feine ©timme E)oren lafjen unb offnete be6f)al() feinen Qd^nabel. Sabei lie& ev ben M\e fallen. S)er ^uct^iS fd;nappte ben ^afe auf unb lacf;te ben 3iaben au^.
After the pupils have become familiar with the accusative and the direct object, a piece may be introduced in which the indirect objects are particularly emphasized. In the following short didactic anec- dote almost every sentence shows as a supplement of the predicate a noun in the dative case, which in German instruction may be called the n)em=case (corresponding to the form of the interrogative).
SBcftroftcr Uuijc^orfom
^arl unb Dtto gingcn in ben ©arten. Seibe Degegneten bent ©cirtner. Siefer rief ben ^naben ju: „'^i)v mil fit bcm 33ienenftoc£e augraeidien. 3d) traue ben 33ienen nicl)t." ^atl banfte beni yJtanne. ®r folgte bem 3late. Dtto abev g e t) o r cl; t e ber SBarnung nid^t. (Sr e n t g e g n e t e bem ©drtner : „9Jtan barf nid)t ju angftltd^ fein!" ^arl jurnte bem 'greunbe. ®r fprad) : ,,'^d) fage e§ bem S5ater." 2:ro|bem n a I) e r t e fid; Dtto bem Sienenftocfe. ^lotjlid; fd;rie er laut auf. (Sine S3iene l)attc il)n geftod^en. Scr ©artner eilte l;erl)ci. (Sr l^alf bem itnaben. 6^ gelang bem freunblidjen 5J?anne, ben ©tad;el IjerauOoitjieljcn. Sabei erf I arte er ben i^naben bag ©prid)mort: 3i>er nid)t ijoxcn mill, mufi fiit)len !
The treatment of this piece is naturally similar to that of the two preceding selections. After the customary exercises have been prac- ticed, let the verbs be separated from the text and the following assignment made for home study : Form German sentences with each of these verbs, using as objects nouns taken from previous exercises.
One need not string together sentences according to the old method, phrases with neither logical nor chronological connection, in order to illustrate the various sentence-forms. By means of the following piece, which is quite intelligible to any child, declarative, imperative, interrogative, optative, and exclamatory sentences may be illustrated :
®a§ frttttfc Jltitb
a. (Sag linb.) "^d) bin Iranf. ®g tut mir alleg met). 3^ 'nns ntc^t effen. Sag Spiel gcfdltt mir ntd^t mel)r. Sd) luil' "'id) i"g 33ett legen.
i>. (Sie Gttern ,^um Slr^te.) .Romm su ung ! Siel) nad) unferm Jlinbe ! Unter= fud^e feine JtranHjeit ! ©ib il}m Slrjnei ! 3Diadje es luieber gefunb !
<r. (S)er Slrjt ju ben ©Item.) Sft iiag Siinh \d)on lange franf ? SQBoritber flagt eg ? aBo fiif)lt eg ©d^merjen ? §at eg fid) erfdltet ? J^at eg fd;ablid)e ©peifen genoffen ?
84 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
d. (3)er airjt sum i^inbe.) Sci nidE)t angftlid) ! ®i6 mir beine ^anb ! B^^S^ tnir beine 3i"MF! 9fimin biefe Slrsuei ein ! SBIeibe rul)ig im 33ett liegen !
e. (Sas iiinb 511 ben GUern.) Alonnte ic^ boc^ balb roieber aufftefjen ! Jjatte id^ nur nirijt jo (jcftige 3d)mcr3en ! S[Bciin ntid) nur cinmal nicine greunbe liejuci^ten! SBenn id) bod; balb raieber in bie ©d)ule ge^en fonnte ! SSenn id; nur balb loieber gefunb luiirbe !
/. (Stt'j gencfene iUnb.) 2Bie fro^ id; bin ! Uebcr Q5ott, toie bante id; bir ! SDie folgfanx luill id; nun meiuen ©Item fein !
It will prove instructive to retell this text so that the declarative sentences of paragraph a are changed into interrogative sentences, the imperative sentences of paragraph b into optative sentences : D, miDc^te bod) ber 2lr5t tommen ! D, roenn er bod) bem ^tnbe ^Irgnei ^oiit unb e§ roieber gefunb mad^te !
I will close this presentation of the analytical-inductive method with a reading piece of a historical nature, from the study of which the use of important prepositions may be derived :
©eit ber ©eburt G^rifti fann man won beutfd;er Oieid;ic^te reben. Sie (iltefte 33efd;reibung bc6 beutid;cn Sanbes unb ber Sitten ber alien ©erntancn iinirbe uon einem 3lomcr, Xacituo, geliefcrt. Sie alien Seut)d;en fatten fd;iuere i^cimpfe mit ben SRomern 5U fiil;ren. Ser ^tingling, roeld;er fie aug ber rontifd;en £ncd)tjd)aft rettete, I;ie^ Sjermann ober 2lrminiuQ. Gr fd;lug ben rbmifd;en gelbl;crrn S5oru6 famt feinem ,'oeere in bem 3:eutoburger JBalbe. Sa3 Sd;Iad;tfelb loar nalje ber SBefer. 9tad^ jener Sd;lad;t mar Seutfd;lanb frei. ©pdter Iraten unter ben ©er= manen befonberg bie ^J^attfen ^eroor. ©ie gel^ijrten ju ben tapferften 3SolB[tammen. 3(u^er ben ^-ranfen marcn (x\x^) bie ©ad;fen gefiird;tet. Um bag %o.\]k SOO leiftete ein S"i"^ft <^"S frdnfijd;enx Stainme ber Ginigung ber ©ermanen 5U eincnt SBolfe raertuolle Sienfte. Surd; biefen iiaifer rourben bie ©ad;)en jum 6r;rt[tentum belel^rt. ©patere beutfd;e j?aifer au3 fdd;fifd;em ©tamme raaren Seinric^ I. unb Dtto ber ®ro^e. ©ie fdmpften gegen bie Ungarn. Seibe l;aben fiir bie ©ic^er[)eit beg :^anbeg geforgt; ol;ne it;ren 33hit, ol;ne il;re Ginfid)t roar Seut)d;lanb uerloren.
When this piece was studied in the Horace Mann School the serv- ices of a map of Germany were supplemented by various historical pictures especially prepared for educational* purposes by Wachsmut of Leipzig. From these really excellent pictures the pupils gained a lively idea of the great historical personalities, their costumes and armor, their methods of fighting, etc. But it was also demonstrated that the use of the prepositions could be rendered much clearer to the class by the discussion of these maps and pictures than by the above reading piece or by dry grammatical rules, even though they be presented in ever so harmonious verses. When the course of the Weser, the location of the Teutoburger Wald where Arminius won his victory, Aachen the residence of Charlemagne, the Lechfeld
I
TEACHING GERMAN GRAMMAR 85
where the Hungarians were defeated, were pointed out on the map, the prepositions nad), an, sirifdjen, naf)e, an], bieSfeit, jenfeit, etc. were employed with the appropriate cases. By means of the historical pictures the teacher could even illustrate the distinction in the use of one and the same preposition with different cases :
2Bo fei)t il)r SlrminiuS au^ btefem 58ilbe? 2Bir fe^en i[}n in eincm 2Balbe. 3Sof)in ift er gcjogen? (Sr ift in einen 2BaIb gejogen. 2Bo fi^t ^arl ber ©roj^e auf biefem 33ilbe? ©r fil^t auf feinem 2:l)rone. 2s]o()tn rid^tet Jlonig i^einrid^ f)ier ben 33Ucf? Qx rid;tet ben 33lid auf bie Ungarn, etc.
And a third means of making clear the correct use of the preposi- tions with different cases was not disdained : the actual object lesson in the classroom. The teacher threw a book upon the floor with the words :
^c^ rcerfe bicjeS 33ud) auf bie Svbe. SBoIjin racrfe id) bo§ 33ud)? Stuf bie ©rbe. 9Bo licgt jet^t ba§ 33ud)? 2luf ber Grbe. ^c^ trete ^roifc^cn bie 33anf unb ben %\\6). 9Bol)in trete id^? ^rcifdjen bie 33anf unb ben ^■ifc^. 2lber wo ftelje id) je^t? ^'^^fcfjen ber 33anf unb bem 2^ifdje, etc.
Such object lessons as this may be made amusing for the class, and are highly instructive withal.
From time to time the bits of grammar obtained in the various lessons are collected and the pupils are called upon to furnish suitable contributions for this purpose from memory. They seek out and classify at home from the various reading pieces what seems to them grammatically homogeneous. In this way they often discover without the guidance of the teacher what fact is common to all exam- ples, and then they have the grammatical law underlying this fact, which merely needs to be clothed in appropriate form.
I hope from this sketch of the analytical-inductive method it has become evident even to the skeptics that the so-called new method does not despise grammar and does not misjudge the worth of gram- matical system, — but that it aims to attain grammatical knowledge in a more natural way than has previously been the case, with the firm conviction that knowledge so acquired is more valuable and will be longer retained.
VII. A READING COURSE IN GERMAN FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS
We are to treat here of what is known in Germany as the Lck- tureka7ion: in other words, an established Ust of works to be read in the various classes of any higher school ; or, in a somewhat broader sense, a list of authors from which the instructor has to choose the material for class and private reading. Our central authority, the Royal Board of Education for Provincial Schools, and above all else the courses of study for higher schools in Prussia published by the Minister of Public Instruction (the most recent are dated 1901), give general directions for such selection. They indicate certain authors who under no circumstances are to be overlooked, they exercise a control over all new proposals, but to some degree they allow the individual instructor a freedom of choice. Espe- cially in modern-foreign-language teaching it has not been thought advisable to lessen particularly the width of scope which at present characterizes the prescribed reading. In the separate schools a special conference of the departmental teachers of the various classes is called from time to time, which determines to what extent the approved list of reading is to be modified or supplemented. Their resolutions are put on paper in the institution's schedule of studies, and this is laid for approval before the Board of Education, which in turn determines whether the selection decided upon is suited to the class of the school in question, and whether it is in harmony with the directions given by the government.
There is a decided stability in the approved list of reading for Prus- sian schools in the departments of Latin, Greek, and German. For the ancient languages, and to a certain extent for German, this is quite natural and justifiable. We have had under our eyes for centuries the whole of that precious legacy of imperishable value the master minds of Greece and the classical authors of Rome bequeathed to later generations. The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer and the Odes of Horace have become so inherent a part of our approved list of reading that the Greek and Latin recitation-periods during which these authors are interpreted are termed in the curriculum of the
86
A READING COURSE IN GERMAN 87
last school-years "the Homer period," or "the Horace period." The value of the other classical authors too has long since been determined, and it is but rarely that some temporary unimportant variation appears in the prescribed list.
In German, we rate Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, and Uhland as undisputed school classics ; but in the selection of their works there is greater freedom than is the case with the ancient authors. Accord- ing to the Prussian schedule it is impossible and altogether incon- ceivable that a student complete the six-years high-school course, even though it exclude Latin, without having read (and not super- ficially either) at least one masterpiece each of Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller, without having memorized some of Uhland's ballads. But rich treasures lie outside of this narrow circle, especially in the field of modern German literature ; and I do not find it justifiable that even in America tradition and official regulations leave little room for the individual judgment of the teacher.
In this regard the teachers of modern foreign languages in Prussia are better situated ; and as the conditions under which teachers of German in America work are similar, it will be profitable to consider the situation more in detail.
Long past are the times when in the approved list of reading for modern foreign languages in German schools Racine, Corneille, Moliere, and Voltaire were ever paraded before us ; when Shakespeare, Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, Byron's Childe Harold, Dickens's Christmas Carol and Cricket 07i the Hearth, Washington Irving's Sketch Book or Alhambra Tales, made their invariable appearance; when the teacher who dared substitute for Charles XII or the Vicar of Wakefield a less obsolete work, one more valuable from the lin- guistic point of view as well as from that of thought-content, was regarded as an audacious innovator or an uncultured revolutionary.
The rapid advance that modern-foreign-language teaching has made in the last fifteen years in Germany has caused an enlivening and purifying breeze to sweep through the traditional prescribed list, a breeze that has brought down many a moth-eaten piece of stock goods and made it possible to replace antiquated idols by modern literary masterpieces, more important factors in the intellectual life of our day. In this domain the higher authorities have left teachers a free hand. They pointed out to us new goals — especial thanks are due the German Emperor for the impulse he gave the cause, — they designated the cultivation of present-day literature and of colloquial
88 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
language as factors not to be neglected, and thereby opened a wider field of activity for the schools ; and if we but survey this field, in which hundreds of new school-editions have recently appeared and in which the tastes of individual teachers are so widely divergent, some notion can be formed of the varied contents of the approved list of reading, if indeed in this department one can speak of a list at all. The school principals generally allow French and English teachers to propose a book of their own choice, whether it has stood the test of the class-room or not, and objection is but rarely raised to the selection thus made according to individual taste. The teacher and the principal are of course responsible to the higher authorities.
It is evident that we cannot reproach the Prussian authorities with narrow pedantry or with tenacious adherence to antiquated prin- ciples. It was a Prussian school commissioner who wrote some nine years ago in regard to the reading course in modern foreign lan- guages : " We must do away with this one-sided aesthetic, literary, historical material, and seek to employ in our reading the literary ex- pression of all the activities of modern civilized life."
This view-point might well be emphasized in the selection of Ger- man reading for American secondary schools. The school system is keeping step with the phenomenal progressiveness of American cul- ture along other lines ; and one of its notable features is instruction in German by a vigorous corps of teachers, mostly young men and women who were born on German soil or have received there a goodly part of their intellectual training, or at least visit Germany from time to time to keep themselves in active touch with that country and people whose language they are called upon to teach the American youth.
Such a body of teachers is protected from the danger of continuing too long in the beaten track or, unresponsive to the vigorous life of the present, of feeling an undue regard for the old and musty in literature. Such teachers will never forbid new and valuable material to enter the class-room merely because the present reading course, which occupies its place by right of inheritance and is suffused with the fading glow of classical tradition, offers no opportunity for individual choice.
From what view-point, then, shall a German reading course for secondary schools in America be formulated ? Whenever we seek for a way, we first look at the end toward which that way will lead us. And once we have decided upon our way, we direct our glance
A READING COURSE IN GERMAN 89
again and again upon that goal to which we are striving, to assure ourselves at every step that we are not wandering from our purpose.
The following words embrace what should ever stand as a lumi- nous beacon before the mind of the German teacher in America : Ac- quaintance on the part of the student with Germany, with the nature and customs of the German people, with Germany's culture and intel- lectual life.
All reading in class and at home should serve this end, and even the choice of the first book should be made in accordance with the principle just stated, for the primer is the beginning of all Ger- man instruction. Because I am an unconditional adherent of the analytical-inductive method, I would recommend that form of Ger- man reading primer in which each lesson or chapter begins with a short reading piece, simple in language and thought-content, to be practiced in class, and if possible memorized. Whether this be a historical or literary anecdote, a fable, or a short chapter from the rich storehouse of German fairy-tale and saga, each separate piece must stand in unmistakable connection with that ideal end of all German instruction. There is indeed no lack of material, and the more diversified the contents of the first reader are, the more profit- able will they be for the acquisition of a wider vocabulary, the more interesting for the pupil. Historical and literary sallies of wit should take the place of the worthless, every-day twaddle which one so often meets in such books. I do not rate too highly the ethical value of anecdotes: but in many of them an important personality is charac- terized pithily and pertinently by a stroke of the pen ; and the mere mention of such a personality taken from one of the great ages of German history seems to me valuable.
Open, from the large supply of books of this kind, the first on which your hand alights, and you meet perchance on the first page the tale of the Turkish ambassador who witnessed a football game in London. What possible meaning has this for our German class- teaching ? In another reader for beginners, what significance has the description of a Chinese banquet ? Or in a third, the journey of the Argonauts ? Pupils who wish to understand German and Germany must be brought from the very start into the national atmosphere and environment. And to hold them there, to awaken a lasting interest, their reading-book must lay before them suitably chosen material : short pieces in which the pupil becomes acquainted with Baldur and Loki, with Siegfried and Kriemhild, with Barbarossa or
90 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
with Gutenberg, with Frederick the Great and with Bismarck ; short texts which tell of Dornroschen or Riibezahl, of Dr. Faust or VVilhelm Tell, of the Lorelei or Castle Neideck, of the Strassburg Cathedral or the Brandenburg Gate, of a mediceval German tourney or of modern military manoeuvers. To be sure, so short a tale or anecdote opens but a tiny peep-hole, but stars and turrets are seen from it, and they awaken in the student some presentiment of the rich and beautiful fields beyond, which are later to reward him bountifully for all his pains.
And what the first reader offers, as it were, only in embryo, or in small shining pebbles, is systematically developed in the second and rounded into a more complete whole.
I am advocating here the use of a collection of extracts. I know that many of my colleagues have no regard for such books, but this is because their mind is prejudiced by chrestomathies of the old- fashioned sort, — thick volumes in which easy pieces stand beside difficult, old selections beside modern, vulgar beside classical, in which the motley confusion of various styles can only embarrass the pupil. Whoever recalls the old anthologies of Plotz, Burguy, Herrig, and others, will readily understand why we used to prefer to read the longer work of some author. But we have lost our temporary dislike for volumes of extracts — principally because they are now presented in far more acceptable form. There are, however, other practical rea- sons. A much greater demand is made on modern-foreign-language teaching to-day than was the case some years ago. The student must now be made familiar with the wide terminology of the natural sciences, of the technical and commercial branches ; he must acquire such a knowledge of the life, manners, and customs of the people as it is absolutely impossible to glean from the reading of authors.
And finally we have been convinced that the step from the primer to the longer work of a single author is too great, the transition too sudden. To fill this evident gap we put, in the teaching of French in German schools, easy prose works, such as Bruno's Le Tour de la France par deux en/ants and Francinet. Here, in the form of an unas- suming narrative, an author who writes for the young offers the pupil an abundance of facts worth knowing about the foreign land's geography and folk-lore, culture and history, literature, art, and science. Poems are interspersed here and there, and a kind of chrestomathy results, one which is quite different from those pub- lished in former days, and above all to be recommended on account
A READING COURSE IN GERMAN 91
of its uniform style. Something similar must assuredly have been formulated for the teaching of German in American schools, or at least, to judge by the brisk activity in this sphere of publication, is to be expected in the near future.
I think also of a German reader on the lines of the Glilck Auf oi the late Carla Wenckebach and Margarethe Mliller, or the Third German Reader of Dr. Weineck. In such a book the material is laid before the pupils in more detailed form than was possible in the primer ; through all the diversity of the text, however, the goal toward which we are striving is kept clearly in view. The pupil will be taught of the German gods and sagas, of important chapters in Ger- man history, of places famous for German art, of German poets, of German proverbs, and of the beauties of the German popular ballad. The method by which the Wenckebach-Miiller text-book prepares the way for a comprehension of Goethe's, Heine's, Uhland's, and Riickert's poetry, by means of a judicious prose rendering placed before each poem is worthy of all praise.
It is surely wise that the main facts of the lives and works of our classical poets, whose masterpieces the pupils are going to read later, should not be held back for some future literature period. Interesting outlines of a great poet's life should be given as reading material in the second year of the high school.-^
If our course is actually to lead us to that goal which rightly deter- mines our choice of reading, then, on account of the broad range of knowledge which we are striving to acquire, we cannot long do with- out a second anthology of a high-grade sort. This new book must accompany and supplement the reading of authors in the second and third years of high school, and from it material for private reading may be profitably taken. We must remember that the most industri- ous German teacher can read in class only a very limited number of works which are valuable from a literary standpoint ; and yet he is expected to give the pupil some adequate idea of the magnificent treasures that lie heaped up in the storehouse of German literature. There is in my opinion but one way out of this dilemma ; a German reader for use in the advanced classes of high schools.
If Schiller's Wilhehn Tell and Lied von der Glocke are read during the third year, the picture of his poetic genius may be supplemented in this reader by a presentation of the contents of his other important
1 Such simple biographies of German poets, written by Dr. Bernstein, are to be found in the Third German Reader of Dr. Weineck.
92 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
dramas together with interspersed selections from them. If Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea be read in the fourth year, the reader could offer by way of supplement a clear and interesting analysis of Iphigenie, Tasso, Egmont, and Faust, together with a chapter from Dichtiuig tmd Wahrheit as a specimen of Goethe's prose style.
And Lessing ? I am heretical enough to relegate him altogether to this reading book, — just because I believe American pupils should become better acquainted with him than is possible by devoting months to the reading of Minna von Barnhehn and thus having no time left for his other works. And it may be seriously doubted whether American pupils will gain a real understanding of Lessing's greatness by reading this Prussian military piece. For, quite apart from the diction of Minna, which is a far cry from present-day liter- ary language, the conflict which the play depicts offers great difficul- ties for the comprehension of even German high-school pupils ; how much more then to the pupils in American secondary institutions, before whose minds the Prussian major, in actual flesh and blood, can never be successfully conjured.
There are, however, excellent prose renderings of the content of this best of German comedies, from which the pupil would probably gain a clearer idea of what the poet intended than from the play in its entirety. Two or three characteristic scenes would illustrate Lessing's dramatic style. These could be soon disposed of, and sufficient time left to do justice to Laokoon and Nathan, and to awaken an appreciation of the parable of the three rings as told in Lessing's immortal verses. This judgment will seem to many teachers extremely unorthodox, but I cannot consider the entire Nathan suited to school-room purposes. Lessing has offended poetic justice in depicting genuinely noble representatives for but two of the three religions dealt with in the play (for the Knight Templar is utterly indifferent from a religious standpoint). Again, Lessing has given the real plot- of the piece a denouement that even boys and girls of seventeen years look upon as out of place or offensive ; I mean, of course, the unexpected discovery that the Knight Templar and Recha are brother and sister.
Such a reader, devoted to a study of the German classics in smooth present-day German and interspersed with pearls from the master- pieces themselves, should also take into consideration Klopstock, Wieland, Herder, and Heinrich von Kleist. We have something similar for English instruction of German pupils, a Shakespeare
A READING COURSE IN GERMAN 93
reader which brings the great English poet somewhat nearer, even to pupils of the Berlin schools which allow only a two years' course in English.
Should these suggestions for a reader in American schools ever be realized, the teacher would note how much more time could be devoted to the present-day literary language, to the modern culture and intellectual life of Germany, and to imparting a knowledge (now so urgently demanded) of German institutions.
A glance through what the College Entrance Examination Board of the Middle States and Maryland designates as the final require- ment in German, and what it recommends for reading, is sufficient to show the existence of a healthy endeavor not to allow a one-sided worship of the classics to arise in the secondary schools. The requirements clearly indicate the necessity of making the pupil con- versant with the present, every-day language.
But whether this colloquial speech can really be acquired from a reading of all the comedies and farces there proposed seems to me at least doubtful. If Freytag's Journalisten is to be studied with merely this end in view, there may well be a dispute as to whether this piece, which appeared half a century ago, deserves a place in the reading course. To dish up the worthless one-act pieces which our fathers and mothers presented on the amateur stage, such as Er ist nicht eifers'uchtig and Einer mtcfi heiraten, is likewise objec- tionable, for we no longer hear in them the tone of modern conversa- tion, and the German recitation-period is too valuable for such trash. Furthermore, the curtain raisers of good old Benedix and Moser mark such an ebb-tide in the German drama that it seems time to point to the more recent productions of real poets which stand moun- tain high above them and which could be read in American schools with great interest and profit. Such are the subtle Durchs Okr, a comedy in verses by Wilhelm Jordan, and several graceful one-act pieces by Ludwig Fulda ; or if the second-year pupils are to be given a merry farce (I scarcely know if this should be the purpose of school reading), then in the Vetter aiis Bremen or the Nachtwdchter by Theodor Korner we have productions of one mentioned in Ger- man literature with regard, and often with enthusiasm.
To judge by the wording of its printed recommendations, the Col- lege Entrance Examination Board does not expect much from the read- ing of dramas in second-year classes. It discards five-act plays as too long, and suggests that in any case not more than a single one-act
94 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
piece be read with a class. And even this, I think, would better be assigned for private reading. At this stage of the pupil's develop- ment preference is rightly given by the Board to narrative prose, and in the proposed list I greet with pleasure the presence of such authors as Heyse, Storm, Baumbach, Seidel, and Volkmann-Leander. Ander- sen in my opinion has no place among them. However beautiful his tales may be, he was not a German author ; and if fairy tales and legends are to be studied connectedly outside of the reader which I have above characterized, then let the classic tales of the Brothers Grimm be used, or, better still, the Deutsche Volks- utid Heldensageti so simply and beautifully narrated by Gustav Schwab.
The fondness for Hillern's H'oher als die Kirche I cannot under- stand. In Gerstacker's stead I would rather see a greater : Hauff or Chamisso. That Wilhelm Hauff, one of the best story-tellers in German literature, has not won the heart of the American schoolboy, surprises me. His fairy tales, his Lichtenstein, his masterly short stories, belong just as surely in the course of class and private reading as do Chamisso's Peter Schletnihl and Eichendorff's Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts. Zschokke's Zerbrochener Krug would have been long since forgotten, had not a greater than he been incited to adapt the same theme to dramatic form. To be sure, I should not recom- mend Heinrich von Kleist's comedy of the same title for the class room ; but more valuable than Zschokke's tale appears to me at least Kleist's Michael Kohlhaas, a narrative which unrolls before our eyes the important picture of German culture in the early days of Mark Brandenburg ; a story eagerly read in Berlin schools.
Wildenbruch's Das edle Bint is a jewel in the art of modern nar- rative, although one may object that American boys and girls scarcely have a proper understanding of German cadet life. Whoever on this account would prefer another of Wildenbruch's may well select Neid, in which the author also relates a boyhood story, but empha- sizes the universally human element of life and the true feeling of the child mind.
In the third year more difficult prose should be read, and due attention paid to the classics. Riehl and Freytag are excellently chosen authors, and I would read with pupils a few chapters of the latter's masterly historical pictures, on account of their genuinely German content and their classic diction. If any teacher should wish a larger choice, I would call his attention to two later mas- ters of German prose, excellent portrayers of the German country
A READING COURSE IN GERMAN 95
landscape : Theodor Fontane, the author of Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg, and the Thuringian wanderer, August Trinius. I have already said that Schiller's Glocke and Tell must retain the place of honor in the third year. But in his Neffe ah Onke/ a.nd Geisterseher the pupils become acquainted with the great poet directly from his weakest side. As Schiller's prose writings are to be laid before the pupils in the fourth year, I can regard it as no grave offense to his memory if a small portion of the time hitherto devoted to him be given to the poet-herald of the new German Empire — Emanuel Geibel — and to the reading of his powerful drama Sophonisbe or the charming comedy Aleister Andrea.
Strange to say, I find Theodor Korner's Zriny overlooked by all the proposals for reading in secondary schools made from authorized and unauthorized quarters. Korner, the history of whose family is so intimately connected with that of Schiller, Korner, who in time of greatest national agitation " twined the green wreath of poetry about the German bloody sword of vengeance," deserves that American teachers too interpret his muse.
In the fourth year Goethe holds the central position ; and it has been recommended that parts of Dichtimg iind Wahrheit be read beside Hermanti und Dorothea, and that the conception of the poet be further supplemented by private study of the related chapters in the reader. If I am rightly informed, but twenty to thirty per cent of American high-school pupils receive a college education. Should these students in the upper classes of the secondary schools be sent out into the prose of life without some idea of the imperishable beauty of Faust? Should they not have read at least something about Goethe's Gotz, Iphigenie, Tasso, and Egmont in the pages of a suitably prepared an- thology ? To insert two or three of these plays bodily into the school course would be undesirable, as it would necessitate too great haste in the reading.
Schiller should be read again in the fourth year. But Maria Stuart with her fanatic Catholicism is scarcely a heroine for American students. Far more attractive to them is the fresh tone of Wallen- steifis Lager, or the lofty prose of the Geschichte des Dreifiigjdhrigen Krieges.
I have already given my reasons for the omission of Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm, and shown how the hero of German literature " who from the bondage of false rules led us back to truth and nature " can be studied otherwise than in the lines of his one comedy.
96 THE TEACHING OF MODERN LANGUAGES
Some teachers will dislike to give up Mitma von Bar?ihelm on account of its specifically Prussian content, and because the pupil is thus introduced to German history and to noble representatives of the Prussian military class. But substitutes in this respect may be found in Paul Heyse's Coiberg, or in Wildenbruch's Metmonit or Vdter und S'ohne. In the Quitzows the Berlin dialect would cause American pupils too great difficulty, and from a literary standpoint Der neiie Herr is not on a level with Wildenbruch's earlier historical dramas.
In order to escape, however, the danger of becoming mired in "aesthetic, literary, historical material," it seems desirable in the last year of teaching in secondary schools to offer modern prose reading which is instinct with German Realien. In many American text-books, in Stern's Geschichten vom Rhein, Ajis deutschen Stddten, and others, a fairly successful beginning has been made. Knowl- edge of German government institutions, military affairs, commerce, and industry, would be of value and interest to that numerous class of young men who later in their travels or business relations are to be brought into contact with Germany. They would feel the gap in their education if the school had not led them to a right un- derstanding of these matters. I do not ask that such works as Gore's Gernia?i Science Reader, Hodges's Course in Scientific German, Kutner's Commercial German, Vogel's Scientific German Reader, Kron's Ger- man Daily Life, Prehn's Journalistic German, constitute for months the only class reading ; but as many schools devote their efforts to a suggestive introduction to German rather than to a complete mastery of it, they would meet the problem satisfactorily if they began to interest the pupil in reading-material which was valuable not only for its literary worth, but for its hold on the practical needs of life. It is no longer considered blasphemy in German secondary schools, even in such as send their graduates directly to the university, to read in one semester Shakespeare's Havilet, and in the following Tyndall's Fragments of Science, or a work of John Stuart Mill.
Surprisingly little attention seems to have been shown in America to the literature of German letters and memoirs, and yet I need only mention the names of Humboldt, Bismarck, and Moltke, to indicate how much could be derived from those treasures and how useful they could be made even for school reading. Germany's greatest strategist was also one of her greatest stylists — the descriptions of his journeys in Asia Minor have been placed by critics on the same level with Xenophon's Anabasis.
A READING COURSE IN GERMAN 97
I would direct attention to still another void in the course of Ger- man reading in American schools. What linguistic and historical value Mirabeau's addresses had for us in our own school days ! — not to mention the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero. It may be that Bismarck did not have at his command the passionate ardor of the Parisian tribune, but the reading of his speeches discloses that he was one of Nature's orators. We can say of Bismarck's utterance what can be said of no Philippic and no Catilinian oration — from his forcible, powerful German there speaks to us the greatest hero of his nation, of whose spirit the sons of America should also receive a spark.
With hasty strokes, and yet I hope suggestively, an outline has been given of the broad domain from which the American teacher of German may select his class reading. With each new year the realm broadens, because of the continual rejuvenation of this living literature ; and who can say that the next years will not produce in German poetry a classic which cannot be passed by in silence wherever German is taught in all the world .''
New problems, new tasks, are constantly set the modern-foreign- language teacher. In contrast to the classical philologian who indulges merely in an affectionate contemplation of the poetical masterpieces of earlier times, our teacher must occupy himself with the productions and the characteristics of the near present. And by a suitable selection of reading-material he must seek to lead pupils to a comprehension of the foreign nation's peculiar intel- lectual and material culture — in the present instance, to the nature and customs of the German people. In this way he will add his mite toward the upbuilding of that ideal realm of intellect in which the old world and the new shall join hands in solving the common problems of a universal humanity.
THE INTERNATIONAL MODERN LANGUAGE SERIES
Eighty-seven •volumes, including the best 'works of modern foreign literature
THIS series has long been favorably known because of the practical and scholarly editing and the unequaled mechanical execution of its volumes. To make these books still more noteworthy, important changes have recently been made in the style of binding and in the prices. In addition to all the excellent features which have long characterized the series, the books now offer the advantages of a greater attractiveness in appearance, a better adaptation for school use, and a considerable reduction in price.
A PRICE LIST!
FRENCH List price
About : La Mfere de la Marquise et la Fille du Chanoine. (Suf)er) $o
Aldrich and Foster : French Reader
Augier : La Pierre de Touche. (Harper)...
Boileau : Dialogue, Les H^ros de Roman (Crane)
Bourget : Extraits. (Van Daell)
Colin : Contes et Saynetes
Daudet : La Belle Nivemaise. (Free- born)
Le Nabab. (Wells)
Morceaux Choisis. (Freeborn)
Erckmann-Chatrian : Madame Th^r^se. (Rollins)
Fortier : Napoleon : Extraits de M^moires et d'Histoires
Guerlac : Selections from Standard French Authors
Herdler : Scientific French Reader
Hugo : Notre-Dame de Paris. (Wight- man)
Quatrevingt-Treize. (Boielle)
Labiche : La Grammaire and Le Baron de Fourchevif. (Piatt)
La Fayette, Mme. de : La Princesse de Cloves. (Sledd and Gorrell)
Legouv^ et Labiche: La Cigala Chez les Fourmis. (Van Daell)
Lemaitre, Jules; Morceaux Choisis. (Melle)
Leune : Difficult Modern French
Luquiens : Places and Peoples
Popular Science
Mell^ : Contemporary French Writers
M^rimee : Colomba. (Schinz)
Michelet: La Prise de la Bastille. (Lu- quiens) 20
50 50 45
75 50 40
25
50 50
50
35
50 60
80 60
35 45
List price Moireau : La Guerre de I'lnd^pendance en
Amdrique. (Van Daell) $0.20
Molifere : L'Avare 40
Le Malade Imaginaire. (Olmsted) 50
Le Misantrope. (Bocher) 20
Les Pr^cieuses Ridicules. (Davis) 50
Montaigne : De I'lnstitution des Enfans.
(Bocher) 20
Musset, Alfred de : Morceaux Choisis.
(Kuhns) 60
Paris : Chanson de Roland, Extraits de la .50
Potter: Dix Contes Modemes 30
Racine: Andromaque. (Bocher) 20
Renard : Trois Contes de Noel. (Meylan) .15 Rostand: Les Romanesques. (Le
Daum) 35
Sainte-Beuve : Extraits. (Efifinger) 35
Sand: La Famille de Germandre.
(Kimball) 30
La Mare au Diable. (Gregor) 35
S^vigne, Madame de, Letters of. (Har- rison) 50
Van Daell: Introduction to French
Authors 50
Introduction to the French Language.... i.oo Van Steenderen : French Exercises 15
GERMAN
Auerbach: Brigitta. (Gore) 35
Bernhardt: Krieg und Frieden 35
Carruth : German Reader 50
Dippold : Scientific German Reader. (Re- vised Edition) 75
Du Bois-Reymond: Wissenschaftliche
Vortrage. (Gore) 40
Ernst : Flachsmann als Erzieher. (Kings- bury) 40
1 A list of the German and Spanish books in the series is given on the following page.
GINN & COMPANY Publishers
THE INTERNATIONAL MODERN LANGUAGE SERIES — continued
List pr
Ford : Elementary German for Sight Trans- lation $o.
Fossler's German Conversation
Freytag: Die Joumalisten. (Gregor)
Doktor Luther. (Goodrich)
Soil und Haben. (Bultniann)
Gerstacker: Germelshausen. (Lovelace)....
Goethe: Egmont. (Winkler)
Hermann und Dorothea. (Allen)
Grandgent : German and English Sounds
Grillparzer: Sappho. (Ferrell)
Hauff : Tales. (Goold)
Heine : Die Harzreise, with Selections from his Best Known Poems. (Gregor)
Keller: Dietegen. (Gruener)
Kleist : Prinz Friedrich von Homburg. (Nollen)
Lessing: Emilia Galotti. (Poll)
Minna von Bamhelm. (Minckwitz and Wilder)
Luther: Deutschen Schriften, Auswahl aus. (Carruth)
Meyer: Der Schuss von der Kanzel. (Haertel)
Minckwitz and Unwerth : Edelsteine
Mueller: Deutsche Gedichte
25 60
45 45 5° 30 60 60 50 45 5°
40 25
50 50
45
80
35 35 40
List price Niese : Aus danischer Zeit, Selections from.
(Fossler) $0.35
Riehl: Burg Neideck. (Wilson) 25
Rosegger : Waldheimat. (Fossler) 35
Schiller and Goethe: Correspondence.
(Selections.) (Robertson) 60
Schiicking: Die Drei Freier. (Heller) 30
Seeligmann : Ahes und Neues 35
Seume : Mein Leben. (Senger) 40
Storm: Geschichten aus der Tonne.
(Brusie) 40
Immensee. (Minckwitz and Wilder) 30
In St. Jiirgen. (Beckman) 35
Super: Elementary German Reader 40
Van Daell : Preparatory German Reader... .40 Von .Sybel : Die Erhebung Europas gegen
Napoleon 1. (Nichols) 40
Zschokke : Der zerbrochene Krug. (San- bom) 25
SPANISH
GaldcSs: Dofia Perfecta. (Marsh) 1.00
Gil y Zarate : Guzman el Bueno. (Primer) .75
Morati'n : El Si de las Ninas. (Ford) 50
Valera: El Pajaro Verde. (Brownell) 40
OTHER MODERN LANGUAGE TEXT-BOOKS
FRENCH List price
Aldrich and Foster: Foundations of
French Jo.go
Coppee: Le Pater. (Sumichrast) 25
Doriot : Beginner's Book in French 80
Part II. Reading Lessons. (Separate)... .50
Dufour : French Grammar 60
French Reader, with Vocabulary i.oo
Dumas : Les Trois Mousquetaires. (Sumi- chrast) 70
Hugo: Les Miserables. (Sumichrast) 80
Knapp : Modem French Readings 80
Van Daell : Memoires du Due de Saint- Simon 64
GERMAN
Bernhardt: German Composition go
Collar-Eysenbach : English into German... .25
German Lessons 1.20
Shorter Eysenbach i.oo
Dippold : Emanuel Giebel's Brunhild 50
Doriot: Beginner's Book in German 80
List price
Hempl: Easiest German Reading $0.40
German Orthography and Phonology.
Part 1 2.00
Miiller and Wenckebach: GluckAuf 60
Schiller's Maria Stuart go
Stein: German Exercises. Book 1 40
German Exercises. Book II 40
German Exercises. Book II, with Com- mercial Exercises 50
SPANISH
Becker and Mora: Spanish Idioms 1.80
Knapp: Modern Spanish Grammar 1.50
Modem Spanish Readings 1.50
Lemly : Spanish Accentuation 10
Pardo : Pascual Lopez 75
Pinney : Spanish and English Conversation
First Book 60
Second Book 60
Smith: Gramdtica Prictica de la Lengua
Castellana. (Nueva Edicion) 60
Descriptive announcements of these books -ivill be sent postpaid to any address on request.
GINN & COMPANY Publishers
407 B151T cl
Bahlsen / The teachi
modern languages
III III I "
ng of
3 0005 00029789 8
407
B151T Bahlsen
The teaching of modern langua- ges
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