reading knowledge of German, and since the sole aim of these students is to be admitted to college we cannot blame them for choosing the less of two necessary evils. Literature does not enter into the calculation of either teacher or pupil.

If there is any school where the student should derive from German literature intellectual broadening and æsthetic culture it is the college, but even here it is at best very doubtful. Professor Joynes of the University of South Carolina, one of our most enthusiastic and serious teachers, in speaking of the subject, says: "And so it is that the French and German literatures, with all their wealth, all their promise and potency of culture, of delight, of inspiration, of power, remain a dead letter in the lives of the vast majority of all our college graduates. If this is not true, I fain would be corrected, but I fear it is only too true."

If colleges fail, are high schools apt to be more successful? Maybe, maybe not. I doubt it. Now, this seems to be a serious and ungracious accusation, and I should hesitate to make the charge did I not believe it to be within our power to remedy the condition, to a large extent at least. Of nothing am I more thoroughly convinced than that we lay out our plans on too vast a scale, forgetting to give due attention to the attainment of a perfect gradation, the sine qua non of all progress. I do not for a moment deny to literature its lofty place in language-study. It would be absurd to do so. But literature is a final aim, which can only be reached step by step; no one has ever reached it with a single bound. Literature, I dare say, will take care of itself if we provide the conditions under which alone it may perform its elevating influence upon mind and heart; in other words, if we give careful and thorough instruction in the language, for little is gained from a German classic unless the student can read it without special consciousness of its being in a foreign language. As long as he reads it "with tears," thumbing his grammar and dictionary, it is waste of time, which may be better spent on a work of English literature. Now we attempt to teach literature and allow our students to pick up by the the few crumbs of educational value this course may way offer; the results have proven disastrous for both. Let us then

turn the tables and make it our sole aim to teach the language, and by choosing good books provide material which will foster and develop a taste for literature.

The study of German, moreover, must be of real benefit to every student, even should he never come under the influence of German literature, as is the case with the vast majority of high school students who leave us before graduation. What Professor Laurie says of Latin is true for German: "That our method be such as to give to every pupil the full benefit of the training and discipline which the language is presumed to afford and which the pupil's age admits of, at whatever point he may cease to study it. Herein lies one of the claims which all method permanently makes on the teacher-that it assures this admirable result. Each day's lesson justifies itself." Let us not neglect the student who stays with us only one year. That year amounts to one ninth of his entire schooling, and ought to be worth a great deal to him, and will be if his needs be recognized. The fact that only 12 per cent of our students graduate is a serious question, which occupies the attention of thoughtful educators in all parts of the country. I sincerely hope that most of these are leaving us for good reasons, but I am convinced that many also leave school because we fail to adapt our teaching to their capacity and needs. The fault may not always be ours, but no matter where the blame rests, existing conditions make it our duty to do all within our power to improve them.

Much may be accomplished in this direction by the method of instruction. I use the word "method" here in its good old sense, and do not refer to any special method, such as the "natural method," the "grammar" and the "reading method," etc., which, no doubt, may serve their purpose admirably under certain conditions. The success of any method depends upon the aim in view and the conditions under which we are laboring, for there can be no doubt that the method must be suited to the needs and the mental capacity of the student, no matter what the teacher may prefer. It is impossible to teach a student in a primary school in the same manner as in the high school; the method must necessarily vary according to the laws of mental evolution. Each grade, in fact, the primary school, the high

school, and college,-should have its characteristic method, as also its special curriculum of study. For the primary school the inductive method used with a view to educating the senses, the imagination, attention, memory, judgment, etc., seems to me the most rational. With the growth of the reasoning powers the imitative faculty and the retentive memory of the child gradually recede, involuntary attention becomes voluntary, and the student now remembers better by association. Under these circumstances I should prefer a combination of induction and deduction, still essentially inductive, in as much as it attacks the living language first, but the student should no longer be expected to accept on trust that for which a reasonable explanation may be given; finally, when the student is in the full possession of his faculties, when he can learn for learning's sake, I see no reason why the purely deductive method should not be used with equally good success. I myself should never think of using any other method in learning a foreign language. I begin with a short grammar, giving an outline of grammatical forms, and after a few days begin to read, first a book that is very familiar, such as Grimm's Fairy Tales or chapters from the Bible, etc. Since grammar is about the same in all languages, only differing in outward forms, any person having studied Latin, Greek, and one or two modern languages, will thus be able to acquire a new language with almost no effort whatever in a very short time. We are all familiar with this "reading method," and have observed its usefulness again and again in teaching students who have had a few years of Latin. If, however, this method be applied to children who have never studied any language but their own, it will naturally lose much of its value. The results have been, to say the least, very discouraging, so much so that enthusiastic votaries of this method despairingly recommend that the study of German be postponed until the student be sufficiently grounded in Latin. The success of this method then depends upon the student's knowledge of Latin, a fact which no teacher can afford to disregard. I grant it is a very easy way of overcoming this difficulty by making the Latin teacher do the work, while we read fairy tales and novels in our class rooms. The fact is, however, that the Ger

man should do for the scientific students what Latin does for the academic students, but this is seldom, if ever, the case. It is sometimes claimed that Latin offers special advantages for disciplinary training, such as cannot be attained by the study of a modern language. Though this statement may be, and often has been, challenged by men of authority who are able to judge of the comparative values of these languages, the true question for us to ask is not, Which is better? but rather, Of what benefit can German be made to the student who does not study Latin? At present the disciplinary value of Latin far surpasses that of German, but I attribute this fact mainly to the manner in which Latin is taught, not so much to the language itself. It stands to reason that a thorough study of Latin must yield better results than a superficial study of German, but as yet we do not even know what German might do for the student if it were taught only one half or one third as thoroughly as Latin. I do not advocate a modern language being taught like a dead one, but this certainly does not mean that our instruction should be indifferent; otherwise modern languages had better be taken off the high school curriculum altogether, for in that case they would do more harm than good by the demoralizing effect upon the student's attitude toward his work in general. High school students read about 300 to 400 pages of Latin, but they are expected to read 1,100 pages of German in the same length of time (Report of the Committee of Twelve). Nor is this all. It is suggested that these pages be read with understanding and appreciation, that the students receive constant drill on the text, numerous exercises on the grammatical difficulties, practice in composition and independent theme writing upon assigned topics. Our students must be able to read any German literature of the last 150 years and to answer in German questions relating to the lives and works of the great writers studied; in short, they should know more German than a high school student could learn in ten or more years. A suggestion which thus involves time, thoroughness, and 1,100 pages, seems to me a rather difficult one to follow; for unless these three can be combined successfully, it will force the teacher to make choice between quality and quantity, sacrificing the one to the other to

meet the requirements. Now, thoroughness is a very elastic term; it may mean a great deal or next to nothing, while 1,100 pages is something tangible at least, something one can swear to in signing a college certificate. There is no doubt at all in my mind that all inferior or inexperienced teachers will choose the latter, since it is pleasanter work, more definite, and infinitely easier, as it may be bolstered up by literal translations.

Copious reading before the student is prepared for it has but one advantage, in that it serves as a sort of review of words and phrases, but at the same time it introduces so many new words that it might be reasonably doubted whether this sort of review is easier and better than thorough and careful drill on less material. Besides, the acquisition of words and phrases gained by such reading is based on memory only, and, therefore, has little or no educational value. Nor am I too sure whether the scanning of 1,100 pages will mean anything in regard to intellectual gain. For my part, I am more inclined to accept John Ruskin's idea, who says, "Get into the habit of looking intensely at words, and securing yourself of their meaning, syllable by syllable, nay, letter by letter. You might read all the books in the British Museum if you could live long enough, and remain an utterly illiterate, uneducated person; but if you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter, that is, with real accuracy, you are forever in some measure an educated person." Reading is good as long as it produces thought, but too much reading curtails it. It has been aptly said that people read so much because they are too lazy to think.

I do not wish to be misunderstood, however. As I have said before, I heartily approve of the reading method, and would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone with a sufficient knowledge of Latin, or as a continuation at college of a thorough high school course of German. There is nothing new in the reading method; as far as I know, it is used in all parts of the world, though rarely without preparation for it, as in this country. The Committee of Twelve are well aware of the deficiency of our "American reading method," saying: "A few things thoroughly and intelligently done make the best secondary discipline. As long, however, as our present condi