.576 



8CIUJVCU, 



[Vol. IX., No. 227 



would be that followed by nurses and children, 

 is definitely characterized as bad, and, from its 

 wastefulness and absence of system, unworthy of 

 imitation later on. Under the most favorable cir- 

 cumstances, the method is more or less a failure, 

 and the result cannot but be infinitely less pro- 

 ductive in the later study of a foreign language, 

 where it is impossible to reproduce those condi- 

 tions. A language cannot be picked up by ear 

 without systematic study. Even a residence in 

 the foreign country before the elements of the 

 language have been mastered, so far from being 

 advantageous, is positively injurious, as the learn- 

 er is forced, by the exigences of the moment, to 

 make use of incorrect constructions, which are 

 afterward difficult to get rid of. Klinghardt 

 characterizes Techmer's system, in so far as it 

 concerns the practical acquisition of language, as 

 an example of the ' rationally developed natural 

 method.' There is here, however, a confusion of 

 terms. Techmer does not concern himself solely 

 with the practical acquisition of language, but 

 makes its theoretical study an important and in- 

 deed an essential element. The Montaigne-Sau- 

 veur method is distinctly stated by him to take 

 but little account of the theoretical knowledge of 

 language. He might have stated with greater 

 fairness that it takes no account of it at all. 



In the foregoing, particular stress has purposely 

 been laid upon the views of Techmer and Sweet, 

 as their importance justly demands. While far 

 apart at some points in the development of their 

 respective systems, the two are nevertheless whol- 

 ly at one in fundamental principles. Techmer, as 

 Klinghardt notes, shows in his treatment of the 

 question the traditional peculiarities of his nation. 

 He begins, in a sense ah ovo, with a psychological 

 consideration of language in general, considers the 

 subject carefully in its whole extent, and makes, 

 rightly, the ideal side, the theoretical knowledge 

 of language, both a prominent means and an aim 

 of acquisition. Sweet, on the contrary, sees the 

 question only from its practical side. He does 

 not attempt to give a systematic exposition of the 

 whole question of language, but, convinced that 

 the aim of language-study should be wholly a 

 practical one, develoj)s with admirable rational- 

 ness and common sense a system whose mere 

 practicality cannot be disputed. He leaves a 

 place also for theoretical knowledge, but would 

 make it an end in itself, in that he would place it 

 beyond and above the practical acquisition of a 

 language. Particularly valuable is Sweet's vindi- 

 cation of scientific phonetics as a basis of linguis- 

 tic study. 



However the writers here cited may differ in 

 , single points of detail after the first stages of in- 



struction have been passed, all with one accord 

 cry out, with a voice that ought not to fall un- 

 heeded, for the reform of existing methods. Via- 

 tor is right : ' Der Sprachunterricht muss um- 

 kehren ! ' In what essential points it may be 

 reformed has here been pointed out as much in 

 detail as space would permit. In accordance with 

 what has been said, — as Klinghardt puts at the 

 beginning of his article, — language-instruction 

 must apply, as far as possible, the certain results 

 of modern philological investigation. Secondly, 

 grammar is to be at first studied inductively and 

 in connection with the reading texts : when a 

 systematic grammar is finally taken up, it is to be, 

 as much as possible, limited in extent. Finally, 

 instruction must proceed from the stand-point of 

 the spoken language and the sentence. Reform 

 in the teaching of the foreign languages, ancient 

 or modern, cannot, perhaps, be expected to come 

 all at once, or to come of itself. Old practices are 

 too deeply rooted for the exertions of a few thus 

 easily to overturn them ; but surely thex-e is noth- 

 ing inherent in the old method, that it should be 

 retained if something better can be found to take 

 its place. If the results of present methods of in- 

 struction, whether in school, academy, or college, 

 are to be taken as a standard whereby to judge of 

 their efiiciency, then reform is needed here as in 

 no other place in the curriculum. The matter has 

 been viewed too long with indifference. The old 

 method is inadequate to supply what is demanded 

 of it. Time that can ill be spared, and the drudg- 

 ery of hard labor, are spent upon it ; and the re- 

 sult, in nine cases out of ten, is now what it al- 

 ways has been, — practically nothing ! When 

 existing methods, be they educational or economi- 

 cal, are bad, the rational way is to discard them. 

 If they are bad in part, then discard them in part ; 

 if bad throughout, then reject them utterly. 



Wm. H. Caepenter. 



The Athenaeum states that Mr. H. Howorth, 

 M.P., the historian of the Mongols, is going to 

 bring out a work entitled ' The mammoth and the 

 flood,' in which he endeavors to prove that a wide- 

 spread cataclysm brought the mammoth period 

 to a close, and that this catastrophe involved a 

 wide-spread flood of water which not only 

 drowned the animals, but buried them, some- 

 times with their bodies intact, and in many cases 

 along with a crowd of very incongruous beasts, 

 and covered them with continuous mantles of 

 loam and gravel. 



— The international ' astronomical society, As- 

 tronomische Gesellschaft, meets this year at Kiel 

 on Aug. 29. 



