Connect with model book. Memorizing.

little n might be. Pestalozzi insisted on the children going over the elements again and again till they were completely master of them. Ascham, Ratke, and Comenius all required a model-book to be read and re-read till words and thoughts were firmly fixed in the pupil's memory. Jacotot probably never read Ascham's "Schoolmaster." If he had done so he might have appropriated some of Ascham's words as exactly conveying his own thoughts. Ascham, as we saw, recommended that a short book should be thoroughly. mastered, each lesson being worked over in different ways a dozen times at the least, and in this way "your scholar shall be brought not only to like eloquence, but also to all true understanding and right judgment, both for writing and speaking." In this the Englishman and the Frenchman are in perfect accord.

§ 14. But if Jacotot agrees so far with earlier authorities, there is one point in which he seems to differ from them. He makes great demands on the memory, and requires six books of "Télémaque" to be learned by heart. On the other hand, Montaigne, Locke, Rousseau, H. Spencer, and other great writers would be opposed to this. Ratke insisted that nothing should be learnt by heart. Protests against "loading the memory," "saying without book," &c., are everywhere to be met with, and nowhere more vigorously expressed than in Ascham. He says of the grammar-school boys of his time, that "their whole knowledge, by learning without the book, was tied only to their tongue and lips, and never ascended up to the brain and head, and therefore was soon spit out of the mouth again. They learnt without book everything, they understood within the book little or nothing." But these protests were really directed at verbal knowledge, when it is made to take the place of

Ways of studying the model book.

knowledge of the thing signified. We are always too ready to suppose that words are connected with ideas, though both old and young are constantly exposing themselves to the sarcasm of Mephistopheles :

Against this danger Jacotot took special precautions. The pupil was to undergo an examination in everything connected with the lesson learnt, and the master's share in the work was to convince himself, from the answers he received, that the pupil thoroughly grasped the meaning, as well as remembered the words, of the author. Still the six books of "Télémaque," which Jacotot gave to be learnt by heart, was a very large dose, and he would have been more faithful to his own principles, says Joseph Payne, if he had given the first book only.

§ 15. There are three ways in which the model-book may be studied. 1st, it may be read through rapidly again and again, which was Ratke's plan and Hamilton's; or, 2nd, each lesson may be thoroughly mastered, read in various ways a dozen times at the least, which was Ascham's plan; or, 3rd, the pupil may begin always at the beginning, and advance a little further each time, which was Jacotot's plan.* This last, could not, of course, be carried very far.

As I have said above (p. 89) these methodizers in language-learning may, with regard to the first stage, be divided into two parties which I have called Complete Retainers and Rapid Impressionists. Two Com. plete Retainers, Robertson and Prendergast, have, as it seems to me, made, since Jacotot, a great advance on his method and that of his

Should the book be made or chosen ?

The repetitions, when the pupil had got on some way in the book, could not always be from the beginning; still

predecessor Ascham. As I have had a good deal of experience with beginners in German, I will give from an old lecture of mine the main conclusions at which I have arrived :-"My principle is to attack the most vital part of the language, and at first to keep the area small, or rather to enlarge it very slowly; but within that area I want to get as much variety as possible. The study of a book written in the language should be carried on pari passu with drill in its common inflexions. Now arises the question, Should the book be made with the object of teaching the language, or should it be selected from those written for other purposes? I see much to be said on either side. The three great facts we have to turn to account in teaching a language, are these:-first, a few words recur so constantly that a knowledge of them and grasp of them gives us a power in the language quite out of proportion to their number; second, large classes of words admit of many variations of meaning by inflection, which variations we can understand from analogy; third, compound words are formed ad infinitum on simple laws, so that the root word supplies the key to a whole family. Now, if the book is written by the language-teacher, he has the whole language before him, and he can make the most of all these advantages. He can use only the important words of the language; he can repeat them in various connections; he can bring the main facts of inflection and construction before the learner in a regular order, which is a great assistance to the memory; he can give the simple words before introducing words compounded of them; and he can provide that, when a word occurs for the first time, the learners shall connect it with its root meaning. A short book securing all these advantages would, no doubt, be a very useful implement, but I have never seen such a book. Almost all delectuses, &c., bury the learner with a pile of new words, under which he feels himself powerless. So far as I know, the book has yet to be written. And even if it were written, with the greatest success from a linguistic point of view, it would of course make no pretension to a meaning, Having myself gone through a course of Ahn and of Ollendorf, I reinember, as a sort of nightmare, innumerable questions and answers, such as "Have you my thread stockings? No, I have your worsted stockings." Still more repulsive are the long sentences of Mr. Prender.

Robertsonian plan.

every part was to be repeated so frequently that nothing could be forgotten. Jacotot did not wish his pupils to learn

gast:- -"How much must I give to the cabdriver to take my father to the Bank in New Street before his second breakfast, and to bring him home again before half-past two o'clock?" I cannot forget Voltaire's mot, which has a good deal of truth in it," Every way is good but the tiresome way." And most of the books written for beginners are inexpressibly tiresome. No doubt it will be said, "Unless you adopt the rapid-impressionist plan, any book must be tiresome. What is a meaning at first becomes no meaning by frequent repetition." This, however, is not altogether true. I myself have taught Niebuhr's Heroengeschichten for years, and I know some chapters by heart; but the old tales of Jason and Hercules as they are told in Niebuhr's simple language do not bore me in the least.

"Ein Begriff muss bei dem Worte sein,"

says the Student in Faust; and a notion-a very pleasing notion, tooremains to me about every word in the Heroengeschichten.

These, then, would be my books to be worked at the same time by a beginner, say in German :--A book for drill in the principal inflexions, followed by the main facts about gender, &c., and a book like the Heroengeschichten. This I would have prepared very much after the Robertsonian manner. It should be printed, as should also the Primer, in good-sized Roman type; though, in an appendix, some of it should be reprinted in German type. The book should be divided into short lessons. A translation of each lesson should be given in parallel columns. Then should come a vocabulary, in which all useful information should be given about the really important words, the unimportant words being neglected. Finally should come variations, and exercises in the lessons; and in these the important words of that and previous lessons should be used exclusively. The exercises should be such as the pupils could do in writing out of school, and vivâ voce in school. They should be very easy-real exercises in what is already known, not a series of linguistic puzzles. The object of the exercises, and also of a vast number of viva voce questions, should be to accustom the pupil to use his knowledge readily. (But some teachers, young teachers especially, are always cross-examining, and seem to themselves to fail when their questions are

Hints for exercises.

simply in order to forget, but to learn in order to remember for ever. "We are learned," said he, "not so far as we

answered without difficulty.) The ear, the voice, the hand, should ail be practised on each lesson. When the construing is known, transcription of the German is not by any means to be despised. A good variety of transcription is, for the teacher to write the German clause by clause on the black-board, and rub out each clause before the pupils begin to write it. Then a known piece may be prepared for dictation. In reading this as dictation, the master may introduce small variations, to teach his pupils to keep their ears open. He may, as another exercise, read the German aloud, and stop here and there for the boys to give the English of the last sentence read; or he may read to them either the exact German in the book or small variations on it, and make the pupils translate viva voce, clause by clause. He may then ask questions on the piece in German and require answers in English.

66

For exercises, there are many devices by which the pupil may be trained to observation, and also be confirmed in his knowledge of back lessons. The great teacher, F. A. Wolf, used to make his own children ascertain how many times such and such a word occurred in such and such pages. As M. Bréal says, children are collectors by nature; and, acting on this hint, we might say, Write in column all the dative cases on pages a to c, and give the English and the corresponding nominatives." Or, "Copy from those pages all the accusative prepositions with the accusatives after them." Or, "Write out the past participles, with their infinitives." Or, "Translate such and such sentences, and explain them with reference to the context." Or, questions may be asked on the subject-matter of the book. There is no end to the possible varieties of such exercises.

As soon as they get any feeling of the language, the pupils should learn by heart some easy poetry in it. I should recommend their learn. ing the English of the piece first, and then getting the German vivâ você from the teacher. To quicken the German in their minds, I think it is well to give them in addition a German prose version, using almost the same words. Variations of the more important sentences should be learnt at the same time.

In all these suggestions you will see what I am aiming at. I wish