800 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



4. On the Cultivation of Literary Taste. By Miss Lucy Harrison, ^ 



5. The Position of German in the Educational Curriculum. 

 By Professor J. G. Robertson. 



Decline of German as a school-subject in England in recent years. Statistics. 

 The position of German in the British Universities. Comparison with America, 

 where the opposite phenomenon is to be observed, German having in the course 

 of the last ten or twenty years advanced rapidly in favour there. The practical 

 utility of the subject, owing to various reasons, not recognised, or at least under- 

 estimated, in England. Ell'ects of political differences and commercial rivalry. A 

 deeper reason in the estrangement between German and English intellectual life in 

 the present generation. Comparison of the interest in German poetrj' and philo- 

 sophy in the tirst half of the nineteenth century (Carlyle to Matthew Arnold) with 

 the ignorance and indifference to be met with in intellectual circles at the present 

 day. This attitude of mind reflected in the teaching at the Universities, where 

 Goethe twenty or thirty years ago was by no means a negligible force, and is 

 now rarely even read. In turn, this indifference influences the position of German 

 in the schools and the character of the teaching. 



Suggested remedies. Vitalising the methods of teaching German. Methods of 

 approaching the literature. The particular educational value of German literature 

 as an instrument of culture. The importance of German depends, as American 

 educational leaders have recognised, not merely on the utility of the language as 

 a tool for the student of science or philosophy, but as a means of bringing us into 

 touch with a literature invaluable for the development of the Anglo-Saxon mind ; 

 it introduces us to a criticism of life and an attitude towards art and literature 

 which is of supreme value as a corrective to the more sternly practical ideals of the 

 English and American peoples. Effects of the attention given to German already 

 noticeable in American education. The necessity of a reconsideration of the posi- 

 tion of German in English education from a similar point of view. 



6. The Teaching o/' 3fechanics by Hxperiment.^ By C. E. AsHFORD, M.A. 

 ' Published in the School World, September 1906. 



