October 28, 1887.] 



SCIENCE 



209 



engineering in importance in the Sibley College organization. The 

 expenditure of all that may be needed to make its material part 

 complete, aided as it is so effectively by its friends outside the uni- 

 versity, will be more than justified. 



Professor Thurston estimates that about $100,000 should be ex- 

 pended in its permanent establishment ; $60,000 on building, includ- 

 ing $15,000 on water and steam power, each of which should give 

 1 50 horse-power, the one for use in ordinary work, the other when- 

 ever experimental work compels the utmost possible regularity of 

 speed ; and the balance, $40,000, in supplying needed additions to 

 the equipment of apparatus of exact measurement for heavy currents, 

 and to furnish the income needed for running expenses, including 

 fuel, one workman, and an assistant to the professor of physics, 

 who should be placed in charge of this valuable property ; which, al- 

 though a part of the Sibley College establishment, is really managed 

 by the department of physics in all except its power-supply. It is 

 not impossible, that, as Mr. Cornell used to say, "there is some one 

 walking around who wants to provide this " now greatly needed 

 laboratory. It is certainly an opportunity for some wealthy and 

 public-spirited friend of the university and of this side of its work 

 to immortalize himself, while doing a noble work for his fellows. 



THE STUDY OF MODERN EUROPEAN LITERATURE 

 IN AMERICA. 



There has been a marked change in the subjects of instruction 

 and study in American colleges within the last few years. In 

 literature, the study of French and German and early English has 

 been substituted for Latin and Greek : physical science has won 

 larger recognition, and political economy, history, and the science 

 of government, have become prominent subjects of instruction. 

 The change which has effected this result in the leading universities 

 has been gradual, but many institutions are as yet untouched by its 

 influence. 



A comparison of the curriculum of any college now and that of 

 fifty years ago would show that modern subjects now share the 

 time formerly devoted exclusively to the classics, mathematics, and 

 philosophy. The value of the old is not less, but new discoveries in 

 science, and the recognition of the value of modern European 

 literature, have displaced in part the former subjects of education. 

 The pressing demands of modern life and modern culture have 

 modified views, and the practical claim has been felt that the years 

 of study should contribute to getting on in the world. These views 

 have changed the direction of instruction, while the end of all edu- 

 cation, intellectual discipline and the training of all the powers, has 

 not been forgotten. What results have been attained, and what 

 further changes are necessary that the new education may bear the 

 choicest fruit ? 



The results of the study of the modern languages can be char- 

 acterized as only in part successful. One American university still 

 announces in its catalogue that the " modern languages are taught 

 like the classical tongues." Until recently the instruction in French 

 and German followed strictly the old method of teaching Latin and 

 Greek. The fact that the language was still a living speech was 

 ignored, and the pupil went forth as powerless in the presence of 

 the language itself as a classical student would have been if he 

 stood before an ancient Greek or Roman. Much time is undoubt- 

 edly still wasted by confused, illogical, and misdirected efforts on the 

 part of teachers. The learning of a foreign tongue embodies the 

 training of the eye to distinguish the printed words, the tongue to 

 utter them, and the ear to recognize them when spoken. Lin- 

 guistic training is not simple in the sense that one method will ac- 

 complish all these aims. There is beyond this the higher disci- 

 pline of the study of language as the expression of thought, and its 

 critical and philological study. The student who learns a living 

 language as he learns a dead language will know no more of the 

 one than of the other. Experience verified in the lives of all 

 scholars shows how an ability to read a given language carries 

 with it no practical mastery of the language : the ability to speak 

 or write the language, and to understand it when spoken, is apart 

 from a mere reading ability. Even the familiar sentences of the 

 New Testament will not call up their Greek or Latin or German 

 equivalent without special study. Instruction hitherto in modern 



languages has been directed to impart a knowledge of the literature. 

 The key to the literature has been found in the grammar and the 

 lexicon. After a mastery of grammatical forms, reading has been 

 begun. 



The defects of this method are the same that have characterized 

 all classical study, — the laborious acquisition of words, the per- 

 plexing idioms, the search after the true translation, now success- 

 ful and now futile, a correct knowledge of which is only possible to 

 one familiar with the genius and spirit of the language, and its 

 idiomatic, provincial, or possibly archaic use. 



The subtle flavor of a foreign expression cannot be distilled by 

 the aid of the dictionary alone : it must come from a knowledge of 

 the distinctive meaning and uses of words, and an intelligent ap- 

 prehension of delicate shades of expression. 



Only an exhaustive knowledge of literature and of the multiform 

 usages of popular speech can give an inner insight into the spirit of 

 a foreign language. Such knowledge is impossible to ordinary 

 scholars ; and even advanced study, unless covering the works of 

 different authors and periods, cannot guide the student at a dis- 

 tance to a critical acquaintance with the language. The method is 

 in itself inadequate, and the results unsatisfactory. Mental dis- 

 cipline of a high order may be associated with this method of 

 study ; and a language is often valuable as an instrument of cul- 

 ture from the fact that it transplants the scholar into a new world 

 of thought, presenting sharp features of contrast with one's 

 native speech, exhibiting new grammatical forms and new words 

 as the images of things. 



But science has brought the nations of the world nearer ; and 

 the intellectual, political, and social life of one affects all others. 

 Every day new discoveries in art and science and in the relations of 

 States are flashed across the sea. Other literatures are filled with 

 the thought, the poetry, and the throbbing life of the century. The 

 ancient world no longer fills the domain of knowledge, and new 

 subjects of study demand recognition. 



We pass from the classical method of study to the conversational 

 method of acquiring language, not in all cases a real advance, but 

 in the main a positive progress. Language was studied in its com- 

 mon forms : familiar expressions interpreted the formal grammatical 

 rules, and impressed them upon the mind. But multitudinous ex- 

 ercises often meant perpetual revolution without progress. The 

 entire time available for the student was spent in the exhausting 

 study of exercises : little of the literature was read, and the new 

 tongue became a confused and endless mass of idioms. Exercises 

 were not merely used to illustrate grammatical principles, but be- 

 came an end in themselves. Few students sought an acquaintance 

 with German or French in order to speak these languages, and yet 

 the entire time of the student was consumed in these exercises. 



A via media was then attained by the production of grammars, 

 scientific in arrangement, brief and clear in statement, with e.'cer- 

 cises sufficient to illustrate the rules : idioms were simply studied to 

 facilitate translation. 



The ' natural ' method, or method of oral instruction, followed. 

 The popularity of this system has been increased by its use in the 

 various summer schools of languages. As an accompaniment of 

 any course of study, this method possesses real merits. Its motto 

 is, " Learn a foreign language as a child learns its mother-tongue." 

 This system has also been applied to teaching the classics. It re- 

 quires from the first the use of the language itself by the pupil. 

 Brief sentences are learned, and then translated so as to assert, to 

 ask, to command, and to express conditionality : the subject be- 

 comes in turn object, and the object subject. By continuing the 

 process, the forms of the article, adjective, and the indirect cases of 

 nouns and pronouns, are learned. Later the forms of tenses and 

 modes are learned. This method trains pre-eminently the memory : 

 as a phase of instruction, it is important and valuable, but when it 

 claims exclusive possession of the field of languages, and seeks to 

 dominate the entire system of instruction, it is not justified in sup- 

 planting established methods. 



A noteworthy application of this method has been made in teach- 

 ing Hebrew, and a modified form of it has been used in instruction 

 by correspondence. 



From the Hebrew text of the Bible a living language has been 

 constructed, and made the vehicle for the expression of familiar 



