(3.) Was macht der See? Welcher See ist gemeint? Wo befindet sich dieser See? Von welchem Lande ist hier die Rede? Waren Sie je in der Schweiz? Was für eine Regierung hat die Schweiz?

Now, the best teaching will make some use of all these types of drill questions, but more of the second than of the first or third. The objection to an exclusive or even a predominant use of the first is that it teaches the pupil to "rattle off' paradigms and rules, but not to understand or to use the language. Instead of learning to think in German, as the phrase is, he learns to think grammar in the terms of his text-book. Every college examiner is acquainted with the youth who will write er hat gekommen and then, on demand, give correctly the rule for the use of the auxiliaries of tense. What is needed in his case is not more practice in repeating the rule, but more practice in writing and saying er ist gekommen, The objection to an exclusive use of type 3 is that it does not specifically teach grammar at all. In types 1 and 2 the questions may, of course, be put in German instead of English. It is to be observed, however, that the German grammatical terms are rather difficult to learn and do not come under the head of "everyday forms of expression." The principal value of grammatical drill conducted in German is to teach the learner to handle the sentence. So far as the vocabulary is concerned he might better be learning something else.

(4). Reading matter.-In outlining the work of the elementary course we have recommended that, aside from the German-English exercises of the grammar, the reading matter of the first year consist of graduated texts from a reader. This is the usual practice, and it certainly has some argument in its favor. The advantage of a reader is that it offers variety, introduces the learner to different styles, and leads him gradually from that which is very easy to that which is more difficult. Some teachers, however, prefer to make no use of a reader, but to pass directly from the grammar to complete stories having some literary value. They urge that such reading is more interesting and profitable than the disconnected texts usually found in readers. Others, while approving the use of a reader, will prefer to drop it earlier than our scheme proposes, and to read at least one complete story during the first year. Questions of this kind are not very important; and there are no general principles on which to decide them. Teachers must decide according to the character of their classes. Fortunately there is now no lack of suitable material. We have several very good readers and a large numberof Märchen, Geschichten, Erzählungen, and Novellen, published both separately and in collections, and all annotated for beginners.

In choosing from the mass of literature available for the second year the aim should be, of course, to find that which is interesting to the young, wholesome, well-written, and not too difficult. It is natural to begin with the fairy stories, or Märchen, in which Germany is so prolific, but pupils of high-school age should not be kept too long on a diet of Märchen. If, at the end of the elementary course, the pupil is to be able to read easy narrative prose at sight, it is necessary that he have practice in reading different styles. Lively, realistic narrative, with plenty of dialogue, is to be preferred. The German Märchen is apt to appear childish to American boys and girls. On the other hand teachers often complain that the most of the tales furnished by conspiring editors and publishers are more or less mawkish love tales, and they sigh for vigorous stories of adventure with the grand passion left out or made little of. This is a demand which future editors may well keep in view. Meanwhile we must remember that the Germans are a more sentimental people than the Americans, and that one of the objects for which we study German in school is to learn what the Germans are like.

Stories suitable for the elementary course can be selected from the following list: Andersen's Marchen and Bilderbuch ohne Bilder; Arnold's Fritz auf Ferien;

1 In all the reading lists the order is alphabetical. It expresses no opinion with regard to the merit of the texts as compared with one another.

Baumbach's Die Nonna and Der Schwiegersohn; Gerstäcker's Germelshausen; Heyse's L'Arrabbiata, Das Mädchen von Treppi, and Anfang und Ende; Hillern's Höher als die Kirche; Jensen's Die braune Erica; Leander's Träumereien, and Kleine Geschichten; Seidel's Märchen; Stökl's Unter dem Christbaum; Storm's Immensee and Geschichten aus der Tonne; Zschokke's Der zerbrochene Krug.

Good plays adapted to the elementary course are much harder to find than good stories. Five-act plays are too long. They require more time than it is advisable to devote to any one text. Among shorter plays the best available are perhaps Benedix's Der Prozesz, Der Weiberfeind, and Günstige Vorzeichen; Elz's Er ist nicht eifersüchtig; Wichert's An der Majorsecke; Wilhelmi's Einer musz heiraten. It is recommended, however, that not more than one of these plays be read. The narrative style should predominate. A good selection of reading matter for the second year would be Andersen's Märchen, or Bilderbuch, or Leander's Träumereien, to the extent of say forty pages. After that such a story as Das kalte Herz, or Der zerbrochene Krug; then Höher als die Kirche, or Immensee; next a good story by Heyse, Baumbach, or Seidel; lastly Der Prozesz.

A minor question which sometimes exercises the mind of the teacher is the question of the special vocabulary versus the dictionary. The obvious advantage of the special vocabulary is that it is very much more convenient for the learner. A well-known schoolman in writing to the committee upon this subject, sums up his views in the proposition that "dictionaries are a nuisance." Nor is it easy to find any valid pedagogical objection to the use of a properly prepared special vocabulary. The objection most often urged is that in using a special vocabulary the scholar does not learn, nor try to learn, what the word really means in and of itself, but only what it means in the context where he has found it. It is urged, therefore, that before he can become independent, and acquire scholarly habits of study, he must emancipate himself from the special vocabulary and learn to use the dictionary. There is some force in this argument, but not much; for what the learner invariably does in using the dictionary is to pick out, from the various meanings given, the particular one that suits his occasion. To the others he pays no attention. When he comes across the word in another sense, he looks it up again. It is thus a saving of time if he have the right meaning, uniucumbered by the others, given him in a special vocabulary. Really the whole question is mainly one of saving time. If, in getting his lesson, the learner could have at his elbow someone who would simply tell him the meaning of the word, that would be better still, if he would but remember what he were told. But there is undoubtedly some truth in the principle that what is acquired with difficulty, that is, with exertion and exercise of judgment, is the more likely to be remembered. Meanings that come easily in footnotes are apt to go no less easily. The whole question is one upon which no fixed rules can be laid down. There is no serious objection to the use of special vocabularies throughout the elementary course, provided the right texts are available in editions provided with Vocabularies, but the choice of reading matter should not turn primarily upon this consideration. It is best to provide a good course of reading, with variety, interest, and progression, even if, toward the end, the dictionary has to be used. (5) Translation into English; sight reading.-In the majority of schools it would appear that, after the first few months, the study of German consists principally in the translation of German literature into English. Translation is the exercise which is felt by both teacher and pupil to be the most important, and it is the one, accordingly, which is most insisted upon. It is also the exercise most easily handled. To sit and hold a book while the members of the class translate, one after the other, into class-room English, to correct their more serious blunders, and help them to "get the sense," requires no great amount of preparation, no great expenditure of energy or ingenuity. But while it has its dangers, the profitableness of translation can not be successfully attacked. Whatever may be

true of very young children, one who already knows one language will learn another most "naturally," most expeditiously, and most thoroughly by means of comparison with his mother tongue; and this comparison, as was pointed out in a preceding section, is an important instrument of discipline and culture. Moreover, translation is the most effective and the most readily available means of determining whether the sense of a passage is exactly understood. It is the best detective of mental haziness, half-knowledge, and self-deception. At the same time it should not be forgotten that the principal object of study is not to learn to translate, but to learn to read without translating.

How to deal with translation so as to make neither too much nor too little of it, so as to get the good and escape the evil of it, is not a simple problem for the teacher. It is easy to say that good translation should always be insisted on, and that bad English should never be allowed to go uncorrected. As a counsel of perfection, this is no doubt good. The trouble is, however, that really good translation of real literature is an art requiring literary skill. There must be time for the mental balancing of alternatives, the testing of synonyms, etc. No one can do it offhand. To.expect schoolboys or college students to do it in the ordinary routine of class work, is to expect impossibilities. On the other hand, slovenly, incorrect, and unidiomatic translation is worse than a waste of time. The young person who gets into the habit of murdering his mother tongue in cold blood, under the pretense of learning a foreign language, does himself more harm than good. What, then, is to be done? The practical answer would seem to be this: Between the extremes of atrocious English, which should not be endured, and the really good English, which is unattainable, there is a wide belt of what may be called tolerable English; English which is not excellent from a literary point of view, but is at least clear, grammatical, free from gross improprieties in respect to idiom, and reasonably faithful to the meaning of the original. Such tolerable English is all that can be expected in the ordinary routine of the class room. It is, however, desirable that the learner become aware that there is a higher ideal, and that he have some practice in trying to reach it. To this end a passage of German text should occasionally be given out for a carefully prepared written translation, with instructions to take time and make the work just as good as possible. Such translations should then be criticised by the teacher and compared with one another in the class. Attention should be called to the small points of idiom, arrangement, choice of words, turn of phrase, etc., which make up the difference between the tolerable and the excellent. In this way the pupil's literary sense will be cultivated; he will become familiar with the idea of translation as an art, and the effect will be to improve gradually the quality of his ordinary work.

The next question is: How long and to what extent should the routine translation of good German into tolerable English be insisted on in the class room? The answer is: So long as and wherever the teacher is uncertain whether the meaning of the original is understood. If there is complete certainty that the learner can translate his passage of German into tolerable English, it is, as a rule, not worth while to have him do it; the time can be used to better advantage. An exception may be made, of course, in the case of pupils who are for any reason unusually backward in their English, or for such as may be suspected of not preparing their lessons. But for capable pupils who have a right attitude toward their teacher and their work, there presently comes a time when the routine translation in class of what they have previously prepared ceases to be profitable. They learn no new German in the process, and they do not improve their command of English. For A, B, C, and D, who have prepared their lessons and know perfectly well how to translate a given passage, to sit in the class while E actually translates it means a waste of time. When that stage is reached it is time to drop the systematic translation of the entire lesson in class, to call only for the rendering

of words or passages that are liable to be misunderstood, and to use the time thus gained in some exercise more profitable than superfluous translation.

One such exercise is reading at sight. Since the general aim in the elementary course is to learn to read very easy narrative prose at sight and not to learn to translate any specified texts, and since the candidate for admission to college will probably be tested upon some text that he has never studied, it is evident that considerable practice should be given in sight reading. Teachers sometimes object to this exercise on the ground that it encourages guesswork and inaccuracy. But the objection is not valid. The object of the exercise is to increase the learner's vocabulary, to make him feel that he can read German that he has not previously studied and to give him facility in such reading. There is not the slightest objection to his guessing at the meaning of a new word. All our reading is largely a process of divination, and the better we can divine from the context the better we can read. Of course the wrong guesses must be corrected, and the teacher is there for that purpose. It is hardly necessary to say that for sight reading the very easiest texts that can be found should be chosen. Grimm's Märchen are well adapted for the earliest experiments, then Meissner's Aus meiner Welt or Volkmann's Kleine Geschichten.

(6) Reproductive translation into German.-It will be observed that the programme of work for the second year of the elementary course provides for practice "in the off-hand reproduction, sometimes orally and sometimes in writing, of the substance of short and easy selected passages." This is what the Germans call "freie Reproduktion," and is one of the most profitable exercises possible. It teaches the pupil to give heed not only to the meaning but to the form in which it is expressed, to put thoughts in German with German as a starting point. The language of the original should, of course, not be memorized verbatim; what is wanted is not an effort of the memory, but an attempt to express thought in German forms that are remembered in a general way but not remembered exactly. The objection to independent translation from English into German is that for a long time it is necessarily mechanical. The translator has no help except his dictionary and grammar. His translation is mere upsetting. In free reproduction, on the contrary, he instinctively starts from his memory of the original. His thoughts tend to shape themselves in German form. In short, he learns to think in German.

SECTION VIII. THE INTERMEDIATE COURSE IN GERMAN.

(a) THE AIM OF THE INSTRUCTION,

At the end of the intermediate course the pupil should be able to read at sight German prose of ordinary difficulty, whether recent or classical; to put into German a connected passage of simple English, paraphrased from a given text in German; to answer any grammatical questions relating to usual forms and essential principles of the language, including syntax and word formation, and to translate and explain (so far as explanation may be necessary) a passage of classical literature taken from some text previously studied.

(b) THE WORK TO BE DONE.

The work should comprise, in addition to the elementary course, the reading of about 400 pages of moderately difficult prose and poetry, with constant practice in giving, sometimes orally and sometimes in writing, paraphrases, abstracts, or reproductions from memory of selected portions of the matter read; also grammatical drill upon the less usual strong verbs, the use of articles, cases, auxiliaries of all kinds, tenses and modes (with special reference to the infinitive and subjunctive), and likewise upon word order and word formation.

(c) SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHER.

The intermediate course is supposed to be the elementary course, plus one year's work at the rate of not less than four recitations a week. Suitable reading matter for the third year can be selected from such works as the following: Ebner-Eschenbach's Die Freiherren von Gemperlein; Freytag's Die Journalisten and Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit, for example Karl der Grosse, Aus den Kreuzzügen, Doktor Luther, Aus dem Staat Friedrichs des Grossen; Fouqué's Undine; Gerstäcker's Irrfahrten; Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea and Iphigenie; Heine's poems and Reisebilder; Hoffmann's Historische Erzählungen; Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm; Meyer's Gustav Adolph's Page; Moser's Der Bibliothekar; Riehl's Novellen, for example, Burg Neideck, Der Fluch der Schönheit, Der stumme Ratsherr, Das Spielmannskind; Rosegger's Waldheimat; Schiller's Der Neffe als Onkel, Der Geisterseher, Wilhelm Tell, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, Das Lied von der Glocke, Balladen; Scheffel's Der Trompeter von Säkkingen; Uhland's poems; Wildenbruch's Das edle Blut. A good selection would be: (1) one of Riehl's novellettes; (2) one of Freytag's "pictures;" (3) part of Undine or Der Geisterseher; (4) a short course of reading in lyrics and ballads; (5) a classical play by Schiller, Lessing, or Goethe.

The general principles of teaching set forth in the preceding section apply also to the work of the intermediate course. Translation should be insisted upon so far as necessary, but the aim should be to dispense with it more and more. Every expedient should be employed which will teach the scholar to comprehend and feel the original directly, without the intervention of English. Occasional exercises in preparing very careful written translations should be continued. Practice should be given in reading at sight from authors of moderate difficulty, such as Riehl or Freytag. The "free reproduction" should by all means be kept up. It will be found much more valuable at this stage than independent translation of English into German. In dealing with classical literature thorough literary studies are, of course, not to be expected, but an effort should be made to bring home to the learner the characteristic literary qualities of the text studied, and to give him a correct general idea of the author.

SECTION IX.-THE ADVANCED COURSE IN GERMAN.

(a) THE AIM OF THE INSTRUCTION.

At the end of the advanced course the student should be able to read, after brief inspection, any German literature of the last one hundred and fifty years that is free from unusual textual difficulties, to put into German a passage of simple English prose, to answer in German questions relating to the lives and works of the great writers studied, and to write in German a short, independent theme upon some assigned topic.

(b) THE WORK TO BE DONE.

The work of the advanced course (last year) should comprise the reading of about 500 pages of good literature in prose and poetry, reference reading upon the lives and works of the great writers studied, the writing in German of numerous short themes upon assigned subjects, independent translation of English into German.

(c) SUGGESTIONS TO THE TEACHER.

Suitable reading matter for the last year will be: Freytag's Soll und Haben; Fulda's Der Talisman; Goethe's dramas (except Faust) and prose writings (say extracts from Werther and Dichtung und Wahrheit); Grillparzer's Ahnfrau or Der Traum ein Leben; Hauff's Lichtenstein; Heine's more difficult prose (for example, Über Deutschland); Kleist's Prinz von Homburg; Körner's Zriny; Les