composition has not noticeably improved the English of our children.

After a preliminary survey and drill in the essentials of grammatical forms the student is allowed to translate. No one will question the value of the power to translate accurately and with literary finish. But this is just the point where the Grammar-Translation Method, as generally used, fails most miserably of results. The reading matter is used as material for grammatical drill, and when composition is taught it has the same objective. Only after a long period of this drilling is the student permitted to give most of his attention to translating. In the meantime he has lost whatever Sprachgefühl he has gained by a more or less perfunctory "conversation exercise" from time to time. He ends by studying German literature, using a German text but reading it and thinking the content in English. He could do nearly as well if he used good translations in the first place.

By this method it is intended to give to students: (a) ability to translate accurately; (b) a better English style by comparing the grammatical structure and syntax of two languages, and by drill in translating into good literary English; (c) a knowledge of German literature, using English as the medium and thus transmitting the cultural value of German letters into English terms for English-thinking minds.

By the Grammar-Translation Method a student can rarely be made to acquire any real mastery of German as a living. idiom. He can not hope to enter heart and soul into vital, intimate understanding of German thought and ideals as expressed by the masterpieces of German literature. To obtain such an understanding he must be able to read German as German, to feel "German," as it were, while he is reading it.

THE CONVERSATION METHOD

This method, as its name implies, aims to give to students a command of every-day, spoken German by oral drill in German itself. It is mainly a method of imitation, depending for its success upon endless repetition and upon memory. It ignores grammar almost entirely and tends to become more and more, as the work proceeds, a mere learning of phrases. All that the

student acquires in the end is a weak, halting, uncertain, and, most often, very incorrect knowledge of some every-day idioms, phrases, and sentences. By this method, the student certainly gains very little additional power of thinking and is in danger of missing entirely the cultural value of German literary study.

THE DIRECT OR READING METHOD

The success of the Direct Method is due less to the fact that it is an oral method than to the fact that it places the emphasis upon reading without translating. Professor Walter in his book, Die Reform des neusprachlichen Unterrichts auf Schule und Universität, (Marburg, 1901), gives in a very brief form the essence of the Direct Method, in the following summary of Professor Viëtor's ideas.

"Nicht der tote Buchstabe, sondern das lebende Wort solle in den Vordergrund treten: die neuere Sprache sei nicht an einzelnen unzusammenhängenden Sätzen, sondern am lebensvollen Sprachstoffe zu erlernen und durch das Sprechen und die mündliche Verarbeitung des Sprachstoffes zum festen Eigentum des Schülers zu machen.

"Die Grammatik sei nicht mehr an erster Stelle zu erlernen, sondern habe als Abstraction der Sprache ihr gegenüber zurückzutreten und sei auf inductivem Wege aus dem gewonnenen Sprachstoffe abzuleiten. An die Stelle des bisher üblichen Uebersetzens aus der Muttersprache in die fremde Sprache müsse die freie Behandlung der Sprache wie im Wort, so auch in der Schrift treten.

"Vor allem zeigt Viëtor, wie wenig Wert man bisher auf die Aussprache gelegt habe, ja wie diese nach dem Wort seines Gesinnungsgenossen Prof. Dr. Trautmann in Bonn zum grossen Teil 'grauenvoll' sei, und zeigt uns den Weg eine genaue lautreine Aussprache zu lehren und wie hierbei stets vom Laut auszugehen sei."

If we analyze this statement, the following points stand out. as the objectives of the Direct Method:

a. Detached, unconnected sentences, which were the ruling type in our German grammars up to a few years ago, can no longer be defended as pedagogically sound. The Direct Method demands a compact, connected, living, and natural Lesestück.

b. This Lesestück must form the basis of oral drill, question and answer, with German as the medium. If it is desired to reproduce the Lesestück in written exercises (i.é. composition) the student should be allowed to express the thought in a form that is natural and spontaneous. Only then will he express

himself easily and without the restraint which a constant striving to fit his words into an authoritative, grammar-ruled form puts upon him. He will answer in terms of the living German as he has read it and heard it, and not in terms of the grammar. c. The grammar is not to be studied before reading is begun. From the very first day the student is made to read without translating and the thought content of what he reads is developed into conscious knowledge by means of oral question and answer drill in German. The grammar, however, is not neglected; it is to be taught and learned inductively from the reading text by means of oral question and answer drill. Translation should be resorted to only in case the teacher is certain that this is necessary in order to give the student a clear understanding of a particularly involved or difficult passage in the text that is being read.

ADVANTAGES OF THE DIRECT METHOD

1. The student is introduced at once to the language itself. He is forced to understand it and to speak it without first referring to his English, which he will certainly do if he has to think in terms of the grammar.

2. Stress is laid upon a good Aussprache from the start. The student can then best secure this because his mind is not confused and muddled by the demand to learn paradigms as such, and vocabularies, with all the vexations of genders and endings. He learns by hearing, by speaking, by writing. In other words, he can think what he reads and speaks and writes. He utters ideas, not forms.

3. He learns grammar as a means to an end, for the most part unconsciously. Drill in grammar does not take first toll of his strength and interest. Because he is forced to think in German, he feels in German. He gets this Sprachgefühl naturally, and with it acquires the necessary grammatical forms through actual use in thinking and speaking.

4. It strengthens the initiative of the student and gives spontaneity and pleasure to his mental faculties.

5. The student is first taught to speak of every-day things, but he is very soon ready to enter a wider field, the reading of good literature. No other method introduces him so quickly to reading. He knows this literature through the medium of the

German language; he is not forced to translate. What he reads in German he feels as a German feels it, and he comes therefore to a deeper understanding and to a better appreciation of the best in the literature of the German people.

DISADVANTAGES OF THE DIRECT METHOD

1. There is a lack of properly trained teachers with a sufficiently good command of the spoken German. If a teacher can not speak German with ease he should not use the Direct Method entirely; but he should use it as far as he can. The important considerations are these: (a) He should not teach German as grammar, but as German, and (b) he should use German in the classroom as much as he can.

2. In the hands of some teachers the Direct Method tends to become a mere conversation method. It can not be emphasized enough that the Direct Method does not ignore grammar; it insists upon it as an integral and important part of the class work.

3. Many teachers do not realize that they must prepare a day's lesson much more carefully if they teach by the Direct Method than if they use the Grammar-Translation Method. In consequence one finds in the teaching in many schools a poor, haphazard, and illogical kind of questioning. All too often the teacher does most of the talking.

4. There is some difficulty in finding enough well-graded and interesting material in the text-book market. Nearly all publishers of German school-texts are, however, beginning to publish Direct-Method texts, so that abundant material will soon be at hand.

5. If care is not taken, the student's knowledge of grammar will lack system and coördination. This can be corrected by giving an out-and-out grammar lesson from time to time. But this should be done only after the student knows his grammar facts through inductive drill. A grammar lesson, as such, is intended to explain and to systematize what he already knows, not to teach him new grammar points. It is important that the student should be made to understand that this sort of a grammar exercise is a special class exercise and not the regular routine.

HOW TO TEACH BY THE DIRECT METHOD

Most American teachers will modify the Direct Method in actual practice, and this is perfectly proper if it is done with common sense. Good teaching is in essence nothing more or less than applied common sense. Let the teacher make a study of the technique of Direct-Method beginning books. Such books are advertised by all the leading publishers of German text-books. The teacher should read also one or more of the treatises on methodology. A list of the best of these will be found in the bibliography under The Direct Method, page 8. Especially recommended is Max Walter's German Lessons. This is a record of his work while Visiting Professor at the Teachers' College of Columbia University.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST

GENERAL. History of modern language instruction and bibliographical reference books.

Handschin, The Teaching of Modern Languages in the United States. U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin No. 13, Series for 1913. Washington: Government Printing Office. Worth owning. Contains a good bibliography. (A supplementary bibliography may be found in the Monatshefte für Deutsche Sprache und Pädagogik, 1914, p. 332.) $0.15.

Breul, Handy Bibliographical Guide to the Study of German. London: Hachette & Company. 1895. Contains an extensive bibliography, tho

somewhat out of date.

Viereck, Zwei Jahrhunderte deutschen Unterrichts in den Vereinigten Staaten. Braunschweig. 1903.

"Modern Languages," in Monroe's Encyclopedia.

THEORY AND PRACTICE

The most important reference books under this heading are the following:

1911.

Bagster-Collins, The Teaching of German in Secondary Schools. New York: Columbia University Press. The Macmillan Company. Bahlsen, The Teaching of Modern Languages. Boston: Company.

Ginn &

Breul, The Teaching of Modern Foreign Languages and the Training of Teachers. Cambridge [England]: University Press. 1909. (Putnam.) Jespersen, How to Teach a Foreign Language. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1908.

Other valuable books are the following:

Bloomfield, The Study of Language. New York: Henry Holt & Company. 1914.