GENTOFTE,
Near COPENHAGEN.
I
About twenty years ago, when I began to be interested in a reformation
of the teaching of modern languages, there were not, as there are
now, numerous books and articles on the subject, but merely scattered
hints, especially in the works of Sweet and Storm. It was not long,
however, before the movement found itself well under headway,
especially in Germany. In Scandinavia it began at the appearance of
the adaptation which I had made of Felix Franke’s capital little
pamphlet, “Die praktische spracherlernung auf grund der psychologie
und der physiologie der sprache.” At just about the same time, Western
in Norway and Lundell in Sweden came forward with similar ideas, and
at the Philological Congress in Stockholm in 1886 we three struck a
blow for reform. We founded a society, of course, and we gave it the
name _Quousque tandem_ (which for the benefit of those not acquainted
with Latin may be rendered “Cannot we soon put an end to this?”), that
Ciceronian flourish with which Viëtor had shortly before heralded his
powerful little pamphlet, “Der sprachunterricht muss umkehren.” Our
Scandinavian society published some small pamphlets, and for a time
even a little quarterly paper. But the movement soon reached that
second and more important stage when the teachers began to put the
reform into practice and when the editors of school-books began to give
it more and more consideration, until at present it may be said that
the reformed method is well on the way to permanent favour, at least as
far as younger teachers have anything to say in the matter.
What is the method, then, that I allude to? Well, if the question
means, what is it called, I find myself in some embarrassment, for the
method resembles other pet children in this respect, that it has many
names. Though none of these are quite adequate, yet if I mention them
all, I can perhaps give a little preliminary notion of what the matter
is all about. The method is by some called the “new” or “newer”; in
England often “die neuere richtung”; by others the “reform-method,”
again the “natural,” the “rational,” the “correct,” or “sensible” (why
not praise one’s wares as all dealers do in their advertisements?); the
“direct” comes a little nearer, the “phonetical” indicates something
of its character, but not nearly enough, likewise the “phonetical
transcription method,” for phonetics and phonetical transcription
is not all; the “imitative” again emphasizes another point; the
“analytical” (as contrasted with the constructive) could perhaps
also be applied to other methods; the “concrete” calls attention to
something essential, but so does the German “anschauungsmethode”
too; “the conversation-method” reminds us perhaps too much of
Berlitz schools; words with “anti,” like the “anticlassical,”
“antigrammatical,” or “antitranslation” method, are clumsy and stupidly
negative--so there is nothing left for us but to give up the attempt
to find a name, and recognize that this difficulty is due to the fact
that it is not one thing, but many things that we have to reform, and
that is of course the reason why the reformers themselves fall into
so many sub-parties: the one lays all the stress on one point, the
other on another point. However, there is certainly enough to do for
any one who wants to get better results out of the teaching of foreign
languages than have hitherto been the rule.
It also speaks much in favour of the reform that it is impossible to
name the “new” method after some founder, just as in olden days we
had Lancaster’s, Hamilton’s, Jacotot’s methods; later, Robertson’s,
Ollendorff’s, Ahn’s, Toussaint-Langenscheidt’s, Plötz’s, Listov’s
methods, and as we of later years have Berlitz’s and Gouin’s methods
for the teaching of foreign languages. If in old Norse mythology,
the god Heimdall had nine mothers, our reform-method has at least
seven wise fathers. In this respect it differs essentially from all
the methods just mentioned: each one of them is named after a single
man, and he in return is as a rule only remembered as the originator
of his method. Our method, on the other hand, owes its origin to men
who, for other reasons, may claim a place among the most eminent
linguistic scholars of the last decades (Sweet, Storm, Sievers, Sayce,
Lundell, and others), and the ideas which they have conceived have
been adopted and applied to life with many practical innovations and
changes by a large number of educators and schoolmasters (I may mention
almost at random Klinghardt, Walter, Kühn, Dörr, Quiehl, Rossmann,
Wendt, Widgery, Western, Brekke); on the boundary between both groups
stand especially Viëtor and Paul Passy. That shows that it is not
with theoretical sophistries that we have to do; it is not the whim
of one man, but the sum of all the best linguistical and pedagogical
ideas of our times, which, coming from many different sources, have
found each other, and have made a beautiful alliance for the purpose
of overturning the old routine. Modern languages, which were formerly
treated like Cinderella in our schools and universities, begin to feel
of age, and want to have a word to say, because they cannot put up with
various arrangements which may have been more or less satisfactory for
the classical languages, but do not suit modern languages at all. These
want to be treated as _living_, and the method of teaching them must be
as elastic and adaptable as life is restless and variable.
What is the _object_ in the teaching of modern languages? Well, why
have we our native tongue? Certainly in order to get the most out of
a life lived in a community of our fellow-countrymen, in order to
exchange thoughts, feelings and wishes with them, both by receiving
something of their psychical contents and by communicating to them
something of what dwells in us. Language is not an end in itself, just
as little as railway tracks; it is a way of connection between souls,
a means of communication. And it is not even the only one; expression
of countenance, gesture, etc., yes, even a forcible box on the ear can
tell me what is taking place in the mind of one of my fellow-creatures.
But language is the most complete, the richest, the best means of
communication; it bridges the psychical chasm between individuals in
manifold cases when they otherwise would wander about isolated and cut
off from all intelligent sympathy.
The purpose in learning foreign languages, then, must be in order to
get a way of communication with places which our native tongue cannot
reach, for there too may be persons with whom I, for some reason or
other, desire to exchange thoughts, or at least from whom I wish to
receive thoughts. And herein really lies already the answer to the
question: which languages shall we give the preference? Compare the
advantage of being able to talk with the inhabitants of the Fiji
Islands in their own language with the advantage of being conversant
with French or German. If all that we desire or all that we can ever
hope to attain in any one language is to receive thoughts, to acquaint
ourselves with the works of foreign authors, while we ourselves neither
expect nor wish to be able to impart our own thoughts in it, it is
always a question if it is not better to use translations than to learn
the language itself, especially in the case of the dead languages. A
translation is, to be sure, no perfect substitute for the original, but
on the other hand one has to know the foreign language pretty well in
order to get more out of the original than out of the translation. Then
how does the balance stand between the debit-side--the work of learning
the language--and the credit-side--the extra profit thus to be got from
the authors’ works? It is of course a question which must be decided
separately for every individual case, and there are many circumstances
which may have to be considered; but most people will not lose anything
if they read Tolstoi or Omar Khayyám in English.
The objection may be raised that there are also other reasons for
learning foreign languages. A student of comparative philology, for
instance, studies languages for their own sake, without caring if
they can serve him as a means of learning anything that he did not
know before, or that he could learn much more conveniently in some
other way; he may often be very much interested in languages which
have no literature at all, or which are spoken by peoples with whom
he never comes into contact. But this study, which may be compared
to the study of other means of communication for their own sake,
locomotive-construction, railway signal-service, etc.--only that it is
probably much more interesting--is clearly a special study, which has
nothing to do with the reasons why people generally learn languages.
Although it undoubtedly is an advantage for every educated person to
know something about the life of language, yet I think it will suffice
for me merely to touch upon the theoretical study of languages here and
there in the following pages, so much the more as it is never with this
end in view that any language is placed on the school programme.
Neither were Latin and Greek introduced into our schools for the sake
of training the pupils in logic, no matter how much it may occasionally
be insisted upon that exactly this is their real value. But it is not
necessary to waste many words on this matter, especially since all
competent classical scholars--also those who insist upon a privileged
position for the classical languages in our schools--have long ago
given up as unscholarly the idea that the Latin (or Greek) language
should be more logical in construction than, for instance, French or
English. And there is no doubt much truth in what Robert Browning says:
“Learning Greek teaches Greek, and nothing else; certainly not common
sense, if that have failed to precede the teaching!”[1]
But on the other hand it must not be overlooked that everything which
is learned with a sensible end in view, and according to a sensible
method, tends in itself more or less directly to develop valuable
faculties, and that especially the teaching of languages, in addition
to the actual results which it gives through the contents of what one
reads in foreign languages, is an excellent means of training such
important faculties as--
the faculty of observing (of observing correctly, of observing
independently),
the faculty of classifying under different points of view that which
has been observed,
the faculty of deducing general laws from the material collected by
observation,
the faculty of drawing conclusions and applying them to other cases
than the ones hitherto met with,
--all, of course, faculties that are nearly related--also
the ability to read in general, to read intelligently, and with
reflection.
In the construction of our method of teaching, especially if it is to
be used in schools, we must also take these things into consideration.
Any instruction in languages which merely consisted in a parrot-like
repetition of the words of the teacher or the book, if indeed such
a method is conceivable, would not be in place in our schools, and
besides, no one, so far as I know, has ever tried to introduce such a
pure parrot-method there.
The teacher must make the pupils feel interested in the subject; they
must have a vivid conception of the reward that their work will bring
them, so that it will seem worth while for them to exert themselves.
They must feel that their instruction in languages gives them a key,
and that there are plenty of treasures that it will open for them; they
must see that the literature to which they have gained access contains
numerous works which also have messages for them; and they must, to
so great an extent as possible in the course of the instruction in a
certain language, also have got an interest in the land and people
concerned, so that they themselves will make an effort to extend their
knowledge about these things. There is thus laid a good foundation
for their whole life--and the saying “non scholæ sed vitæ” ought not
to be interpreted, as too many (especially parents) do: learn not for
the school, but in order to pass a good examination, so that you may
prosper in life, and by virtue of your examination get a good position.
The school ought to equip its youth in the very best manner for
life, and the teacher ought not out of consideration for examination
requirements to neglect or hinder anything which otherwise is good. A
word about examinations later; here I simply want to warn the teacher
against troubling the examination until the examination troubles him.
Many of the things which I have to recommend in the following pages, I
have time and again heard teachers recognize as really sensible, but
they are only afraid of them on account of the examination for which
they have to prepare their pupils. The answer to that is, teach in the
right way, then there will be life and love in it all, and when the
examination comes your pupils will know more than if your teaching
from the very beginning had been fettered by examination requirements.
The pupils really learn most when they continually have a feeling that
it is all something useful and valuable, and that it is not too far
elevated above that actual life which they either know or are beginning
to get some notion of.
We learn languages, then (our native tongue as well as others), so
as to be enabled to get sensible first-hand communications about the
thoughts of others, and so as to have for ourselves too (if possible)
a means of making others partakers of our own thoughts; and if we
consider what kind of communications we may be more likely to get
through a foreign language than through our own, the highest purpose
in the teaching of languages may perhaps be said to be the access to
the best thoughts and institutions of a foreign nation, its literature,
culture--in short, the spirit of the nation in the widest sense of
the word. But at the same time we must remember that we cannot reach
the goal with one bound, and that there are many other things on the
way which are also worth taking in. We do not learn our native tongue
merely so as to be able to read Shakespeare and Browning, and neither
do we learn it for the sake of giving orders to the shoemaker or
making out the washerwoman’s bill. So likewise in the case of foreign
languages, we ought not exclusively to soar above the earth, nor on
the other hand exclusively to grovel on the ground; between those two
spheres there are large fields in manifold shades where it might be of
great value for us to stand in direct communication with other nations.