In another state, the report on which has not yet been made public, still another set of local conditions led the Bureau to make another type of recommendation, which is believed to be in harmony with the principles already laid down. It urges the concentration of all senior college and graduate work in engineering, except agricultural and industrial engineering, at the state university and the development of only junior college courses in engineering branches, exception being made of agricultural and industrial engineering again, at the land-grant college.

Perhaps it is too much to hope that the Bureau's position in these matters should commend itself unqualifiedly to the members of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations. It has, however, done its best to make a non-partisan contribution to the solution of this very critical administrative question. It has held constantly in view the fact that the service of the state is the touchstone by which every educational policy should be tested. It is convinced that its recommendations will, if adopted, be the means of saving some future expense in each of these states. But more especially does it believe that the application of the principles here set forth will effect a unity both of organization and of purpose in state systems of higher education that has not always characterized these systems thus far.

SAMUEL P. CAPEN

U. S. BUREAU OF EDUCATION
WASHINGTON, D. C.

II

TEACHING ENGLISH TO CHINESE STUDENTS

AN EXPOSITION OF THE DIRECT, PRACTICAL, NATURAL
WAY OF LEARNING ANY LANGUAGE

We had spent an hour or more discussing the parts of speech. The class seemed to know the difference between a verb and a noun, but they were not quite clear about the plural of nouns. Why was the plural of tooth, teeth and not tooths? Why was the plural of some nouns made by adding s and some by adding es?

"What is the plural of child?" I asked the class.

"Twins," volunteered Wang Pei Chi.

I have since seen this very joke in the Ladies' Home Journal, in payment of which the contributor probably received one dollar, but let me assure you that it was original with my young friend. Neither he nor the other members of the class realized the cleverness of his answer.

How does a small child learn a language? He does not learn it from a textbook. He learns it thru the ear in the natural way from his parents and playmates. If he hears correct speech sounds he will learn to speak correctly. If he hears faulty grammar and poor sentence construction, his language will be incorrect and faulty. If words are pronounced clearly and correctly in his presence he will soon be answering with perfect pronunciation. At the basis of all correct speech lies a correct conception of sound. Our ear and tongue are linked together. The ear is the guide to the tongue. Speech sounds indicate ideas and unless they are "taken in" by the ear the hearer will misunderstand. "Unless ye become as little children ye can not” learn a language.

It was my good fortune to study Chinese at the North China Union Language School in Peking for nine months before taking up my work in the Y. M. C. A. I am satisfied

that I learned more Chinese in those nine months by the direct, conversational method than I learned German in four years by the old scholastic "vivisection" method in vogue in high school and college. Why? Because we were taught to rely on our ears and not on our eyes. The Pekinese dialect has a comparatively simple set of sounds-about four. hundred syllables. But each of these syllables has four "tones," thus giving a possible sixteen hundred syllables. The English language has a possibility of over one hundred thousand syllables. But the Chinese written language has thirty-two thousand characters and English when printed phonetically has only about forty letters. To the ear the Chinese syllables are not difficult, but the Chinese book is impossible as compared with one in alphabetic characters. Here is the problem stated in terms of an algebraic equation: 1600 32,000 ear: eye, in other words, it will be twenty times as hard to learn Chinese by eye as by ear.

FAILURE OF SCHOLASTIC METHOD

The subject which I detested in my public school course was grammar. "A verb is a word which asserts. Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs." These rules and dozens like them meant nothing until I had almost finished my high school course. "On Grampian Hills my father feeds his flocks," this was my worst stumbling block. I always told my teacher that "father" was the object of that sentence. That red-backed state series grammar book was my most annoying and persistent enemy. I always felt sleepy when the class in grammar was called.

The scholastic method is not only at fault in using the eye instead of the ear, but it has failed to recognize the sentence as the unit of speech. It has put emphasis on the word, making that the center of instruction. This method has not reckoned that the elementary difficulty of pronunciation does not fully exist in the word, but rather in the sentence. In teaching grammar as an introduction to a language, scholasticism has failed because it substitutes the abstract for the concrete; grammar, rules, declensions and conjugations are

abstractions. The unit of language is not the letter, nor the word, but the sentence. Just as we would put a specimen into the hands of a pupil about to begin the study of anatomy or botany, so we ought to put a sentence into the ears and on the tongue of a student as we expect him to begin the study of language. We must, of course, learn grammar, but concretely, in connection with the sentences we study. After it is so learned the student shall be able to appreciate it when stated abstractly. The usual custom of beginning with a declension and memorizing case endings which never have been observed does not make linguists. Perhaps the only justification for such a method is for the sake of formal mental discipline. But modern pedagogy teaches us that one may acquire "formal mental discipline" by pursuing studies which are pleasing to oneself.

PRACTICAL LESSONS

A beginner in a language starts to talk in the first lesson. Our classes in English aim primarily to develop the student's conversational ability. Sentence making is insisted upon from the start. The student is not permitted to see the printed lesson. His function is to "stop, look and listen" and then speak. Each lesson deals with the common experiences of life in an uncommon and dramatic way. Suppose the lesson is about eating. The teacher sits down at the table, takes the food he needs, handles the table utensils, eats his meal, gets up from the table and leaves the room.

Or, take for instance, the lesson about the growth of plants. The teacher brings to class some seeds, a bush or two or a plant and begins by telling the class that the seed must have earth before it will grow. He then proceeds to plant the seed in some soil which he has brought for the purpose, saying, "I plant the seed in the earth." Then by pouring on some water he illustrates the value of moisture to growth. He holds up a plant and points out the roots and the leaves and other parts of the plant. By showing the fruit, some good and some bad, the teacher can at once pass into a simple discussion of the topic, "By their fruits ye shall know them,"

or "First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." He has in the meantime given verbs, nouns, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs and adjectives, and the class is not aware that it has had the parts of speech or that it has learned grammar as it should be taught.

Other lessons along this line follow, the capable teacher always acting out the subject. As he says each sentence he suits the action to the word and the pupils rehearse the sentence first in chorus and later individually. A dozen lessons dealing with the daily things of life such as dressing, sleeping, eating, visiting, buying, changing money, traveling by ricksha or chair, hiring workmen, and other topics based on Chinese life furnish an extensive vocabulary and at the same time afford much opportunity for practise.

This system has been used extensively and successfully in the United States and Canada by the Young Men's Christian Association. In 1907 Dr. Peter Roberts of the International Committee of the Y. M. C. A. developed the method which bears his name. It was originated solely for use among immigrants. Last year it was used in more than five hundred cities in the United States by the Association. The public schools of several cities are holding classes for immigrantsNew York, Buffalo, Los Angeles, Troy, Boston, Cleveland and some others. In practically all the cities where courses are offered to adult immigrants, the initiative came from the Young Men's Christian Association or some other such private organization.

LEARNING TO SPEAK

Every man has two vocabularies-active, or that which he is accustomed to use, and passive, that which he understands when he hears others speak. Dr. Thomas F. Cummings in his How to learn a language estimates the passive to be five to ten times as great as the active vocabulary.

During the first three to six months one should get only the absolutely essential words and constructions. Words should not be learned apart from the sentence, but as a part of it, or if learned individually they should at once be brought