WHY TEACH MODERN LANGUAGES? 



By J. Raymond Brackett 



The more weighty reasons for the study of modern languages may 

 be obscured by a misapprehension of the importance of certain 

 advantages that are realized only in exceptional cases. One or two 

 out of a hundred young people taking French or German in school 

 may advance into a career where these languages are indispensable 

 instruments of research; one or two may find them useful in business; 

 one or two may go to France or Germany. But a well-educated 

 person can in a few weeks learn to dig out a technical subject 

 by means of grammar and lexicon; the best place to learn a spoken 

 language is among its speakers. The exceptional conditions looked 

 forward to by the rive or six are not sufficient grounds for teaching 

 modern languages to the hundred. 



Among important reasons why the study of modern languages 

 may hold a strong position as a means of education are the following : 

 the resulting improved interest in English; the power that comes with 

 mastery; and the furtherance of literary study. 



In education the roundabout way may often be better than the 

 direct. The vernacular is too much a matter of course with the 

 young student. He is too near to it to see it, like a fish in water or a 

 child in air. The phenomena of his own language do not appeal to 

 him. Such a simple thing as accent has little meaning: he hears no 

 difference between unto and unto. The rhythms of prose and verse 

 have no significance: he reads the plays of Shakespeare and tells 

 you that they are written in prose. 



The American boy is unluckily born to a phonetic system that is 

 a hopeless wreck. He is taught to look for short i in spin and for 

 long i in spine. He tries in his mouth and finds that he can hold 

 "short i" as long as he has breath i . . . . ; but when he opens his 

 lips to say "long i," it shuts itself off like an automatic faucet; "long 



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