710 PRESIDENT S ADDRESS SECTION J. 



LANGUAGE TEACHING. 



One of the most important innovations in method in higher 

 education is seen in the teaching of modern languages. Instead of 

 the older translation method based on a previously acquired know- 

 ledge of grammatical forms and syntax, the newer method begins 

 with the immediate use of the language as the expression of thought, 

 so that the thought and the ex[)ress;ion of it are brought into direct 

 association without the intermediary of the mother tongue. This 

 immediate mental transition from idea to expression gives from the 

 Mrst a usable command of the idioms of the language, and combined 

 with phonetics the pupil's speaking power is acquired at the same 

 time that he is building up his knowledge of sjmtax and inflecti'on. 

 If it be kept in view that the learning of a foreign language is not 

 for some purpose vaguely expressed as mental discipline, but to give 

 the power of speaking, reading, and writing in it, there can be no 

 doubt of the superiority of the newer method. It, however, requires 

 a specialised class of teachers who have themselves a ready and fluent 

 control of the language and a knowledge of phonetics, and the best 

 teachers will be, not those to whom the foreign language is the mother 

 tongue, but those Australian teachers who have, combined with a 

 knowledge of the literature of the foreign language, the power to us& 

 it fluently in ordinary speech. As the need for modern language 

 masters increase, it will doubtless be in the interests of Australian 

 education to set a])art scholarships to enable students to gain the 

 necessary qualification by a period of study in the home of the 

 language. With the entry of Australia into the field of international 

 conmierce, the provision for the best instruction in German and 

 French has already become a pressing necessity. Incidentally it may 

 be mentioned that the application of the newer methods of language 

 study to the study of Latin and Greek is being intrnduced into at least 

 one of our Australian Universities. But in this as in other directions 

 the Universities of the Commonwealth cannot do their highest work 

 in the most eflScient way unless this is made possible by the methods 

 and organisation of the secondary schools. 



SCIENCE TEACHING. 

 Among the hopeful signs of the times is the increased attention 

 being given to the teaching of science in the higher schools. But even 

 yet, science is but timidly securing its rightful place in the sisterhood 

 of studies. Whe^ France was Avrithing under her defeat in 1870, her 

 great scientist, Pasteur, keen in his despair at his nation's abasement, 

 appeals to his countrymen : — " I implore you, take some interest in 

 those sacred dwellings meaningly descril>ed as laboratories. Ask that 

 they be multiplied and completed. They are the temples of the 

 future, of i-iches, and of comfort. There humanity grows greater, 

 better, stronger; there she can learn to read the woi-ks of Nature, 

 .works of progress and universal harmony." Then he reminds his 

 nation that " rich and large laboratories have been growing in 

 Germany for the last thirty years, and many more are still being 

 built." This was said nearly forty years ago, and we stand wonder- 

 ing to-day at the commercial and industrial progress of Germany. 

 Australia presents numberless problems that are awaiting the work of 



