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
Date Due
■P!Js'i::<;32
1
<?4.(?3-(
03 ILL
1
1
1 1
FORM 109
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11