ON THE LEARNING OF A MODERN LANGUAGE 119 



moment arrives. Whether he will be able to do more than that, will 

 depend on certain temperamental conditions, certain mental qualities, 

 which we are now ready to discuss. 



The mental make-up of any given class is always a varied com- 

 posite. One set of students passes on; another comes. In general, the 

 average remains the same. Duplicates are usually found for those who 

 have gone before. Brilliant and dull are both represented, as regu- 

 larly as the new college year opens. In every new class the brilliant 

 student is eagerly looked for; the dull one, too; for he also is an interest- 

 ing psychological study. Perhaps his dulness may be in evidence only 

 in the language-room; he may be as brilliant as the brightest in mathe- 

 matics or in chemistry. But how does it often happen that the best 

 student in French may be the best in some other branch, which is appa- 

 rently far removed from it ? My observations in the past few years on 

 several hundred students who have been in my classes do not enable 

 me to classify them definitely. In looking back over my class records, 

 I find that my best students have come from all departments. It is 

 not only the language students who have distinguished themselves. 

 Students of mathematics, chemistry, engineering, law, and medicine 

 have done excellent work, have demonstrated a special talent for lan- 

 guage work. This is apparently a motley array, and yet the individuals 

 in this motley group must possess certain temperamental qualities in 

 common, at least in so far as they show the ability to do exceptionally 

 good work in the study of French. Thus for translating easy French, 

 I should say that no especial amount of ability is necessary. The 

 memory is slightly exercised in recalling the vocabulary; the translation, 

 once begun, goes on of its own accord by a process of reflex motor 

 action, and the English sentence forms itself automatically without dif- 

 ficulty. In translating from English back into French, however, a very 

 different process is necessary. The memory is brought into play at 

 every moment and the powers of reasoning are constantly drawn upon. 

 A student once remarked that her sense of accuracy was as severely 

 tested in a French composition exercise as in a lesson of mathematics. 



For success in pronouncing the same qualities are necessary. The 

 careful student with his phonetic system at command will first give 



