SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 1887. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



The sixth congress of the Societe nationale 

 des professeurs de Fran9ais en Angleterre, held at 

 London in January, attracted considerable atten- 

 tion from educators generally, and principally, it 

 seems, from the very instructive address with 

 which Dr. Jowett welcomed the members of the 

 congress to Oxford for one of their sessions. The 

 honored professor of Greek at Balliol assured the 

 visitors that the ancient and modern languages 

 have no quarrel, but rather they are related as 

 parents and children, and the greatest affection 

 should exist between them. In particular, he 

 continued, no Englishman can be indifferent to 

 the excellence of Bossupt and Ffenelon, Montes- 

 quieu and Turgot, Voltaire and Rousseau, Mon- 

 taigne and Pascal, or insensible of the great debt 

 owed to these men by the English language and 

 literature. It must be remembered, too, that 

 above all other European languages, in French 

 had been developed the noble and enviable quality 

 of lucidity of style. Dr. Jowett then confessed 

 that the treating of the modern languages in Eng- 

 land was capable of great improvement. The 

 first step in this improvement must be the follow- 

 ing of a natural method. What this is, Dr. 

 Jowett immediately specified : " Nature teaches us 

 to begin with the ear, and not with the eye ; with 

 association, and not with analysis ; with imitation, 

 not with abstractions ; with conversation, not with 

 books of exercises. The powers of the mind gen- 

 erally strengthen, at least to middle life ; but the 

 faculty of learning languages decays, and is 

 almost in inverse ratio to one's years. It is 

 stronger before than after ten, stronger at twenty 

 than at thirty, and so on.'' Furthermore, nature 

 teaches us that a task should be proportioned to 

 the capacity of the learner ; and therefore instruc- 

 tion in the modern languages, which are the 

 easier, should precede that in the classics. The 

 speaker also commented severely on the too great 

 time now spent in acquiring a very moderate 

 knowledge of the classics, and called for a ' reform 

 of procedure.' 



No. 215 — 1887. 



Sufficient emphasis, continued Dr. Jowett, is 

 not laid upon an acquaintance with modern lan- 

 guages. The universities still guide to a very large 

 extent the education of the country, and they 

 have heretofore given slight encouragement to 

 the study of French and German. While the 

 universities neglect these studies, they will be 

 neglected at the schools and undervalued in the 

 homes. He then made a suggestion which we 

 have supported on several occasions already ; 

 namely, that a reasonable knowledge of some 

 modern language may fairly be demanded of every 

 university student, but — and here we must differ 

 even from so distinguished an educator as the 

 master of Balliol — for his degree, not for admis- 

 sion. We are not so sure that it is altogether fair 

 to say that no one but a native can impart "the 

 accent, the intonation, the true living voice of a 

 language." Dr. Jowett said this, and of course 

 his guests did not disagree with him. But it 

 seems to us to go too far. Under this dictum. 

 Max Miiller would be prohibited from teaching 

 Enghsh, and Mr. Saintsbury from teaching 

 French. Before concluding their session, the 

 French masters passed a formal resolution, asking 

 for the establishment at Oxford of a school of 

 modern languages, in order to encourage the study 

 of French literature, and of the French language 

 as a living tongue. 



For the benefit of those who are fond of im- 

 pressing on us continually the great advantages to 

 be gained from a thorough and detailed system of 

 methods, we would call attention to the book of 

 instructions which has lately been issued in Aus- 

 tria, for the use of the teachers in the realschulen. 

 The French system has always been supposed to 

 be the most highly organized possible, but Aus- 

 tria is a dangerous competitor for the honor. It 

 is Mr. Matthew Arnold, it will be remembered, 

 who tells the story of the French minister of edu- 

 cation who pulled out his watch and exclaimed 

 that at that instant all the children of France were 

 receiving instruction on the same subject. The 

 same thing may hereafter occur in Austria ; for, 

 as the Vienna correspondent of an English journal 

 remarks, "the Austrian teacher who, in his geog- 



