worth saying, even if it were only a trivial dialogue between a traveller and a waiter at a restaurant. But although it is conceivable that any one of the sentences quoted from Ahn might occur in real life, yet taken as a whole they are impossible: instead of the first exercises introducing the learner to sentences and constructions which will help him to understand and express what he is most likely to meet with first, they give him a string of disconnected ideas which he might never have occasion to hear expressed or to express himself, even if he lived for years in the country where the language is spoken.

Again, although the sentence about the 'rope-dancers' is not English, yet the result of the translation will certainly be a fairly good German sentence, if a perfectly useless one. But this result is only obtained by giving so many helps in the way of glosses and direct references to the rules of the grammar that the work of translation becomes almost as great a farce as if the learner were set to copy from a book first the English original and then the complete German translation. In fact, such a process would in most respects be a more instructive and improving one; for the learner would have the advantage of being able to compare the two languages in their correct idiomatic forms.

We have also to realize what is meant by making mistakes in our exercises and correcting them afterwards. It means the laborious formation of a number of false associations which must be unlearnt before the labour of forming the correct ones can be begun. Even when no positive errors are made, the writing of exercises which require any thought must produce vague and hesitating, instead of the clear and instantaneous associations which constitute a real practical command of a language.

And yet this process of going out of one's way to make mistakes, and then laboriously correcting them, is almost the only way of learning languages-at least, of learning grammar -that some people can conceive. I remember, when I first went up to Oxford as an undergraduate, I told my tutor that I was rusty about some point of Greek grammar; so he said, "You had better do a paper on it.' I could not help thinking even then that strengthening one's false associations by 'doing a paper' was a curious preliminary to getting rid of them.

It must also be remembered that the knowledge and conviction that a certain linguistic combination is erroneous does

not necessarily get rid of the false association itself, for that is a matter of habit, not only of conviction. Thus, if in speaking German I once get into the habit of making' bread' masculine instead of neuter, even when I am told that brod is neuter, I am still liable to fall back into saying-as I once heard an Englishman say-(haabən zij kainen vaisbroud) through pure force of habit. Getting rid of this habit may imply that I must repeat das brod at least as often as I formerly repeated der brod. There was once a professor who taught some Oriental language by correspondence. One of his pupils a middleaged military man-after going through a course, asked to be allowed to go through it again, so as to perfect the knowledge already gained before going any further. When he did so, he made exactly the same mistakes over again. He then asked to be allowed to go over the same course for the third time. The professor, who seems to have been a good-natured fellow, was inclined to grant this request, but was dissuaded by his wife.

As we see, the only way to avoid the necessity of making mistakes is either practically to do the work for the learner by giving him a more or less complete word-for-word translation; or to make the exercises so easy that they cost no effort, and afford no real practice at all, so that they slip through the mind without making any impression, these very easy exercises being at the same time necessarily unidiomatic and consequently of little or no use when learnt.

These facts are now generally recognized among reformers. This is, indeed, the one point on which there is the greatest unanimity among them, namely, that everything of the nature of exercise-writing ought to be abolished, not only in the beginning but throughout the whole course.

Free Composition; Question and Answer

There is also a general agreement among reformers that the place of exercises and translations into the foreign language should be taken by free composition in the foreign language on subjects taken from the texts already studied, so that the compositions are reproductions of what is already known.

Continental reformers also make great use of a system of question and answer carried on in the foreign language by the

teacher and pupils, the former asking the questions, the latter answering them, or the teacher telling one pupil to ask a certain question of another pupil. The subjects of the questions are, of course, taken from the texts which the pupils have just been reading. Thus even a short sentence such as we can easily see that the earth is round by watching a ship sailing out to sea can be made the subject of a number of questions, such as what is the earth? or what is the earth like? or what shape is the earth? | how can we see that it is this shape? or how can we see that the earth is round? | what can we see by watching a ship sailing out to sea? Of course, if any unfamiliar word, such as shape, is used in the questions, it must be explained, unless its meaning is quite clear from the context.

This method of question and answer is older than is commonly supposed. As I have several times drawn on Bernays for examples of bad methods, it is a pleasure to me to be able to quote the following remarks from the introduction to his German Reader :

'I have always found it very advantageous to my pupils, both in private lessons and classes, to let them translate back again into German. For this purpose I make use of the third section, generally beginning with this kind of exercise about the time the student has reached nearly the end of the first section, proceeding at the same time with the construing of German into English. When the learner is thoroughly master of a piece, however short, I question him on it in German, and receive his answers in the same language. By this means, his ear becomes familiarized with the pronunciation of another person without the aid of the eye, while he insensibly acquires the habit of speaking German himself. Take, for instance, the first short_anecdote, page 119 [I have given this very anecdote on p. 167]; I ask :—

Question. Wer schrieb an die Griechen?
Answer. Alexander.

Q. Was that Alexander?
A. Er schrieb.

Q. An wen schrieb er?

A. An die Griechen.

Q. Was schrieb er an die Griechen?

A. Dasz sie ihn für einen Gott erkennen sollten.

Q. Für was sollten sie ihn erkennen?

A. Für einen Gott.

Q. Wen sollten sie für einen Gott erkennen?
A. Alexander.

Q. Wer sollten ihn für einen Gott erkennen?
A. Die Griechen.

'This exercise may be continued and varied to any extent, if directed by any person capable of conversing in German, provided he is sufficiently familiar with the grammar to correct the mistakes of the student.'

I do not know when this preface was first published-certainly before 1856, the date of the seventh edition of the Reader. Dr. A. Bernays, who was professor of German language and literature in King's College, London, and was, I believe, more successful in the combination of language and literature than is always the case, began to publish his helps for the study of German about 1830. Although he was under the full influence of the methods of detached sentences and exercise-writing which attained their most extravagant development about his time, his books contain many good ideas. It is strange he did not see the absurdity of teaching his pupils to converse in German about Alexander and the Lacedemonians.

The purely oral exercises of question and answer in the foreign language should precede any attempts at written reproduction of what has been learnt, partly on the general ground that the fixed associations of the ear should precede the secondary and perhaps variable associations of the written form of the language, partly because of the facility and quickness with which they can be worked. They have the further advantage of training the pupils both to understand what is said, and reproduce it with accuracy and ease. They are, in fact, the best possible substitute for a phonetic method, although they will be ten times more efficient if preceded by systematic training in phonetics. They are also in the highest degree stimulating to the pupils, and develope quickness, presence of mind, and the power of observation.

This reproductive or 'imitative' method has the great advantage of being progressive. The questions and answers may be exact literal reproductions of what has been learnt, or they may be free paraphrases of it. The questions may also embody new words, which, again, may be expressly pointed out, and explained, either beforehand or afterwards, or left to be inferred from the context.

So also with the written compositions. At first the pupils will simply be expected to write down from memory the subject of what they have been studying. Then they may be set to write an essay on a subject analogous to that of the text they have been studying. In this way the written compositions become gradually more and more independent of the texts, and more and more general in their subjects, as the learner's command of the language is widened, till at last he is able to express himself both in speaking and writing on any ordinary topic.

Visualizing

By visualizing we understand the establishment of a direct association of the words and sentences of the foreign language with the ideas they express by means of a direct appeal to the sense of sight. This can be effected in three principal ways, namely, by

(1) Object-lessons-the presentive or object-method: 'here is a piece of chalk,'' this is called a black board,' 'this is my nose.'

(2) Models, pictures, diagrams-the representive or pictorial method.

(3) Gestures, mimicry-the dramatic method.

It is also possible to establish direct associations independent of the help of a second language by appealing to the other senses. Thus the teacher may illustrate 'cock' or 'fowl' not only by exhibiting a picture of the bird, and by the dramatic method of flapping his arms and raising himself on tiptoe, but

also by an imitation of its crow. So also the pupils may be

invited to taste sugar, salt, tartaric acid, and alum in connection with a study of the foreign words expressing the accompanying sensations of taste. But the visual impressions are evidently the only ones of which any extended use can be made.

Of the purely visualizing methods, it is evident that the first two are best suited for words expressing concrete ideas, the last for words expressing phenomena and actions.

But they are all limited in their application. And of those associations which can be established by visual means, many are, as we have seen, vague and ambiguous as compared with those established by means of translation. It is so even with the object-method. Thus a cube of boxwood may just as well

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