January 21, 1887. J 



SGIENCF. 



69 



much-discussed method would not seem to be as 

 good as its friends might desire. What evokes, 

 however, the reader's doubt at first, is the high 

 praise lavished upon the old method, with its two 

 mighty cornerstones, — the grammar -book and 

 dictionary. One will naturally ask. If the old and 

 long-established method is really as efficient as its 

 defenders would have us believe, why is it, then, 

 that discontent could arise against it, spreading to 

 the great dimensions of to-day? Why is it that 

 just the graduates of our colleges, who have had 

 the full benefit of the blessings of the old method, 

 speak frequently, with a very significant smile, of 

 their knowledge of modern languages acquired in 

 their alma mater f Why is it that men of high 

 standing are protesting against that mode of 

 studying which is in vogue in so many of our 

 colleges and schools ? * And why is it that the 

 old method, being so sti'ong and good as is claimed, 

 could be shaken in its very foundation to such a 

 degree that one of its «armest defenders writes 

 but lately,^ "It is evident to me that the old 

 grammatical method cannot survive the assault of 

 the natural method " ? 



On the other hand, if the principles of the 

 natural method be as wrong as is said by some of 

 the opponents, it would seem strange that scholars 

 and teachers like Whitney, Thacher, and Hadley 

 of Yale should have permitted their sons to be 

 taught by the founder of the method ; that a man 

 like Prof. Dr. Daniel Sanders declares himself for 

 the method ; ^ that men thi'oughout the country, 

 prominent in their vocation, are favoring the 

 natural method ; * and that an educational jour- 

 nal which is not friendly inclined towards the 

 method should have recently been forced to admit 

 that "the subject is now attracting great atten- 

 tion in the secondary and higher schools." ^ 



These discussions in educational and other pa- 

 pers furnish occasionally very interesting reading, 

 and recall to one's mind a well-known story about 



1 D. C. Gilman, president of Johns Hopkins university, 

 writes thus to one of the advocates of the natural method, 

 Aug. 15, 1878 : " Many years ago Mr. George Tickuor, while 

 professor of modern languages in Harvard, declared, that, 

 although Americans spent as long a time as Germans in 

 acquiring a liberal education, the results in this country 

 were far inferior to thoae secured abroad. Other recent 

 writers have illustrated the same point, and have shown 

 how much our deficiencies as an educated people have 

 been due to bad methods of teaching both ancient and 

 modern languages." 



''■ See The academy of December, 1886, p. 339. 



3 Referring to a certain set of readers prepared for the 

 natural method, the celebrated German grammarian and 

 lexicographer says to the writer of these lines, in a letter 

 dated March 3, 1886, that the method followed therein has 

 his full approval (" dass die darin befolgte Lehrweise 

 meinen vollen Beifall flndet "). 



^ See The natural method. No. 6, vol. ii., January edition. 



* See The academrj of November, p. 301. 



three professors who were given the task to write 

 the natural history of the camel. None of them 

 had seen the animal, but they set to work at once 

 in the following way : the first one retired to his 

 charming study, and, trusting to his vivid imagi- 

 nation, wrote a history as he thought it ought to 

 be ; the second one was busy in the libraries, and, 

 out of all the material collected from books written 

 since the time of Julius Caesar, he gave a natural 

 history of the camel ; the third one alone had de- 

 parted to the country, where he could see a camel 

 and learn something about it, so that his report 

 might be true to the facts. If it so happens that 

 the reader of the discussions referred to is familiar 

 with the working of the natural method, it will 

 be hard to convince him that all who are passing 

 judgment against it could ever have tried the 

 method practically and earnestly, or could even 

 have seen a complete course given. 



The question has been raised, ' Is the natural 

 method a method at all?' If it be correct that 

 the term ' method ' signifies ' a series of means 

 purporting to lead to some desired end,' then the 

 question must be answered in the affirmative. All 

 the rules of the method pertain either to matter 

 or to the individual. 



First, it is required that one should proceed in 

 the treatment of the language and in the treat- 

 ment of the laws of language ; i.e., grammar, in 

 accordance with that method, which, ever since 

 Bacon's time, has been the acknowledged method 

 for true study, — the inductive method. 



Second, it is required that the treatment of mat- 

 ter after the inductive method should vary as the 

 individuals who are taught vary in age, character, 

 ability, and preparation. 



To fulfil these requirements to the best advan- 

 tage, it was found necessary to establish the gen- 

 eral rule that the language which is to be taught 

 must serve exclusively as means of communica- 

 tion between teacher and learner. 



There is nothing especially new in either of 

 these requirements ; in fact, one or the other of 

 them has been successfully emj)loyed at various 

 periods by different methods : but the united 

 application of them has been first attempted by 

 the natural method ; and it is this united applica- 

 tion that causes revolution in language-teaching. 

 It is needless to repeat here that the credit of the 

 innovation is due to Prof. Gottlieb Heness of New 

 Haven, Conn. The special training in the princi- 

 ples of Pestalozzi, which he received in the Lehrer 

 Seminar,' and peculiar experiences in the teach- 

 ing of children, had led him to those conclu- 

 sions with which we are now acquainted. To 



1 A German institution in which young men are prepared 

 who intend to teach in the public schools. 



