By this time we have fairly encroached upon the question as to the
method to be used in training pupils in the _grammar_ of a foreign
language. I want to introduce my discussion of this subject with the
following quotation from N. M. Petersen (_Sprogkundskab i Norden_,
Collected Works, Copenhagen, 1870, ii. 297-8):
“With respect to method, the artificial one must be given up and a more
natural one must take its place. According to the artificial method,
the first thing done is to hand the boy a grammar and cram it into
him piece by piece, for everything is in pieces; he is filled with
paradigms which have no connection with each other or with anything
else in the world ... he is filled with words, only half of which
occur occasionally, and some never at all in what he reads. How old
are not the complaints over this perverted method! how many sighs it
has occasioned, how much deformity it has produced! On the other hand,
the natural method of learning languages is by practice. That is the
way one’s native language is acquired. The pupil becomes acquainted
with the elements and absorbs them, as it were, into his soul in their
entirety before he is consciously able to separate and account for
the single parts and their special relations; he forms whole complete
sentences without knowing which is the subject and which the object;
he gradually finds out that he has to give each part of the sentence
its correct endings without knowing anything about tense or case....
The logical consequence of this, then, is that as a rule one cannot
begin with grammar in teaching languages to a child of ten or twelve.
His first years at school ought to give him merely materials; he ought
to collect experiences (that is a child’s greatest delight), but not
speculate over them.”
It is now half a century ago since N. M. Petersen uttered these golden
words, and still the old grammar-instruction lives and flourishes
with its rigmaroles and rules and exceptions, _that intensely stupid
custom, the teaching of grammar to children_, as Herbert Spencer calls
it. Only few of the boys in our schools who have studied German for
several years, are able to connect for instance _um_ with the proper
case without hesitation; but there are certainly still fewer who cannot
run through _durch_ _für_ _gegen_ _ohne_ _um_ and _wider_ like parrots.
But strangely enough this ever present phenomenon does not yet seem to
have led to a general acknowledgment of the fact that these grammatical
rigmaroles as a rule are scarcely worth as much as the counting-out
rigmaroles of the children: eeny meeny miny mo.[19]
And, of course, paradigms which are learned by rote also belong to the
category of rigmaroles. “Paradigms ought by all means to be given,
but should never be learned by heart in rigmarole-fashion.” (N. M.
Petersen.) Thoughtlessness and stupidity thrive excellently on this
continual repetition of words as words, that is words without any
mutual association, without connection in sentences. Just think of the
many thousands of boys and girls who time and again recite: _mourir_,
_mourant_, _mort_, _je meurs_, _je mourus_, and then ask how many
of them, yes even of their teachers, ever happen to think that the
last form in reality is impossible (at all events in conversations
in this life).[20] The percentage is scarcely very large. And when
conscientious philologists like Ayer and Sachs give imperative forms
like _nais_, _naissons_, _naissez_--be born! let us be born!! be ye
born!!! it cannot be denied that we are tempted to use the exclamation:
“die gelehrten, die verkehrten!” Of course it is not our aim to get
rid of such forms as _je mourus_;[21] what is wrong is the system.
I condemn _vivre_, _vivant_, _vécu_, _je vis_, _je vécus_ just as
strongly as _mourir_, etc., even if none of these forms is really
meaningless. And the reason why I reject this method of teaching
languages is because it does not and cannot bring us to our desired
goal. The chief absurdity, the one which it is our business to quarrel
with, is that use of disconnected words for grammatical purposes,
which flourishes in all our text-books.
It has often amused me to examine grown-up persons (non-philologists)
in what they could remember of the instruction they had received in
school in foreign languages. It seems to be extremely common that they
have not the slightest idea as to what case for instance a preposition
governs, but the rigmarole in which it occurs they generally know by
heart. They also know ever so many scraps like _der buchstabe_, _der
friede_, _der funke_ ... or _das amt_, _das ass_, _das bad_, _das
bild_, _das blatt_ ... but why they have learned these things, and
what they were supposed to be good for, to these questions there is
generally no answer forthcoming. So those rigmaroles are really of no
practical use whatever.
Now, of course, rigmaroles could easily be so arranged--though no one
seems to have put it into practice--as to contain an indication of the
object in grouping together just those words, for instance by saying
_durch das zimmer_, _für_, _gegen_ ... or _durch für ... um wider
mich_, or _das amt_, _die ämter_, _das ass_ ... or _das amt_, _ämter_,
_bäder_, _bilder_....
But even in this improved form it seems to me that grammatical
rigmaroles are of little value just because they accustom the pupils
to learn and say things by rote without _thinking_; they are remnants
of the old-fashioned would-be pedagogy where a teacher in any subject
was satisfied if the pupil only “knew his lesson,” that is, could
recite the words of the book, and where no one ever thought about
understanding or other such-like modern inventions.
The expressions “living” and “dead” are so often used about languages
and words, but those who use them do not always take the trouble to
consider in what sense these expressions really have any meaning. A
language only lives, and can only live, in a person’s mind, and that it
lives there means that its component parts are for him associated with
certain ideas, which are recalled when he hears the words, and which
in turn summon up the corresponding words when he wants to express
them, or when he simply wants to make them clear for himself. But
ideas do not and cannot exist except in combinations; an absolutely
isolated thought is the same as nothing. It is the same with words; if
they are taken out of their natural surroundings, they suffer atrophy
and at last cease to perform the usual function of words, namely to
produce ideas. So isolated words, such as are given in rigmaroles and
paradigms, are only ghosts or corpses of words. Try to run through the
words “jewel, stone, cabbage, knee, owl, toys, louse,” and see if a
single complete picture has been produced in your mind--but you are
no better off when you say the French rigmarole _bijou_, _caillou_,
_chou_, _genou_, _hibou_, _joujou_, _pou_. That, as well as _amo_,
_amas_, _amat_, _amamus_, _amatis_, _amant_ and all the others, must by
virtue of the fundamental psychical law of the life of language become
merely empty jingle and nothing else. Now we see the psychological
reason why sensible persons can write such sentences in their books
as _je mourus_ or the entirely parallel “Wir sind nicht hier.” When
the mind is occupied with a word as a grammatical phenomenon, the
word’s normal power of calling forth ideas is of course lessened in a
considerable degree.
Furthermore the isolation of words for grammatical purposes may even
lead us to make positive mistakes. The pupils are first carefully
taught in the grammar that “nobody” in French is _ne personne_ and
“never” _ne jamais_,[22] and later on it is corrected as a serious
mistake when they write _ne personne parlait_ or _il ne jamais parle_,
mistakes which would never have occurred if the pupils had not been
allowed to learn the false formulation. In modern French “nobody” is
_personne_ and “never” _jamais_, just as “not” is _pas_, etc. _Ne_ only
exists in connection with a verb, and ought never to be seen or learned
by the pupils except in its natural surroundings; out of connection it
is no more a word than _un_ (in _unfriendly_, _ungracious_, etc.). The
rule for its employment can be thus stated in short, that it is placed
in front of the verb, always, if the sentence is wholly negative, also
often if it is only half negative (by which I mean the well-known cases
after _empêcher_, _craindre_, comparatives, etc., where _ne_ is well
on the way to slip out of the living French language, and where we
now, after the last ministerial decrees, may allow ourselves a little
laxity in teaching these points).[23] Likewise it is only injurious to
teach the children that “I” is _je_, “thou” _tu_--a matter of fact it
is _moi_, _toi_, while of course “I go, thou goest,” is _je vais_, _tu
vas_; what usage has joined together, let no grammar put asunder.
But words, when in their natural connections, show their vitality in
other ways besides in summing up the correct ideas; they have another
power, which they also lose when they are isolated, namely the power of
breeding new connections in the image of the old ones. If I have often
reproduced a certain type of word-formation or sentence-construction,
then this becomes a part of my mental mechanism in such a way that
I unconsciously make something new (coin a new word, construct a
new sentence) after the same pattern, after the “analogy” of what
I know, whenever I need it, just as the English boy who has often
heard superlatives like _hardest_, _cleanest_, _highest_, etc.,
does not need any rule to be able to construct forms like _purest_,
_ugliest_, _dirtiest_, of his own accord, and who, at the moment when
he says them, would not be able even by means of the most scrupulous
analysis to decide if he has heard the form often before and is
merely reproducing it, or if he himself is creating it without having
previously heard it--and, if the latter is the case, if he is creating
something which others also have created, or if it is the very first
time that the word is used in the language--this is what takes place
every minute wherever human languages are spoken.[24] An Englishman
has so often heard (and repeated) sentences like “give the man your
hand,” “I gave the boy a whipping,” “he gave his sister an apple,”
that he unconsciously forms his sentences according to a scheme where
the indirect object always precedes the direct object, and which even
without this grammatical terminology and without any rule would lead
him quite naturally to say, for instance, “Will you give your father
the money?” A Frenchman would just as instinctively say, “Veux-tu
donner cet argent à ton père?” because in all the sentences which he
has experienced he has heard the “dative” expressed by _à_ after the
direct object.
But since this takes place by virtue of inviolable psychical
laws, it applies not only to the mother-tongue, but also to the
foreign languages which we learn later. We simply cannot avoid thus
unconsciously forming types or patterns to go by, in using a foreign
language, as soon as the conditions for these typical formations are
at hand. If, on learning English, a Dane has frequently heard (read)
and (especially) used combinations like _up here_, _in here_, _in
there_, _out there_, then he will quite naturally say _down there_
when he wants to express this thought; it is not at all necessary for
him previously to have learned a rule to the effect that “_here_ and
_there_ in connection with other adverbs of place stand last.” As a
matter of fact, when we speak or write a foreign language, we employ
a number of such rules which we have never seen formulated, and, what
is more, also rules which have never at any time been consciously
formulated by any grammarian. The reason why we cannot attain the same
confidence in all departments of the foreign language that we feel in
our native language is of course partly because the conditions are not
so favourable, and partly because our mother-tongue acts as a hindrance
on account of the tendency it has to intrude on all occasions and
mislead us to construct sentences after _its_ pattern.
But the conditions become the more favourable for this unconscious
mental activity in our pupils the more we know how to make each
sentence in the foreign language have its full effect upon them and
become their possession, and the more we can keep the mother-tongue
in the background. And although we can never bring it about that our
pupils come across the forms in the foreign language even approximately
as often as that child does who is learning his native language, yet we
can to a large extent make amends for this by bringing a better system
into our teaching, so that the acquiring of the language will not
depend so much upon chance as is the case when babies learn to talk,
just as it is also an advantage that our pupils are older and more
developed, and that we can get some help from the written and printed
language.
Many of the transposition exercises mentioned in the last section
are essentially grammatical, but we can easily hit upon still more
exercises by which we may in a systematic way encourage the natural
tendency toward type- and series-formations. To conjugate a verb all
the way through by itself is the sheerest drudgery, but the exercise
immediately becomes both more interesting and more beneficial when it
is a whole sentence that is to be tackled. For instance, the teacher
can write on the blackboard a sentence like “Je donne un sou à Alfred”
and get the pupils to conjugate it through all the persons. In the
beginning he might also write down all the forms of the verb, one
under the other; they are not to be committed to memory, but merely
furnish a scheme, which the pupils are to fill out by inserting the
correct pronouns before, and _un sou à Alfred_ after the verb. Then
the next step is to let the pupils use other words instead of _un
sou_ and _Alfred_, so that pupil A says, for instance, _Je donne un
centime à Paul_. B: _tu donnes un franc à Jean_. C: _il donne un livre
à papa_. D: _nous donnons des poires à l’épicier_, etc. Then in reality
the task which the boys have before them is to hit upon new words to
insert (they must make sense!); consequently it becomes a kind of game
in which the vocabulary is reviewed like the one mentioned above (p.
99), but at the same time the forms of the verb are practised. If a
pupil should happen to say, for instance, _ils donnent deux cerises à
le maître_, the teacher must only say the sentence himself with the
correct _au_ and make him repeat it in this form without scolding
him,--yes, even without stopping to give a long explanation of why it
should be _au_ and not _à le_ in this case. This kind of exercise can
of course be varied in different ways; such a sentence as _mon père me
donne de l’argent_ is written down, and the pupils are told to inflect
it in all the persons, which of course only involves an alteration
of _mon_ and _me_; or the sentence is to be reconstructed with other
tenses, etc. More complicated sentences, too, may be conjugated all
the way through, either without changing anything but the pronouns and
the forms of the verbs, as for instance, _Je suis allé me promener
avec mon père_; _Das habe ich ihm gestern versprochen, und ich werde
es ihm morgen geben_--or in such a way that other things are changed
too: _je m’appelle_ ... where the pupil is to insert real names (his
own, a comrade’s ... in case it is _vous_, the teacher’s); _Ich habe
meinen vater um etwas brot gebeten._ _Du hast deinen vater um etwas
geld gebeten._ _Er hat seinen vater um ein stück papier gebeten._
_Sie hat ihren vater um einen kuchen gebeten_, etc. Of course one can
also assign written exercises of a similar kind, as for instance:
construct five sentences like _Le père_ de _Jean_ est allé à la maison
de _sa sœur_, using different words in each sentence in place of those
here italicized, etc., etc.; but it were best if these sentences
were suggested by, or in some way associated with, sentences in the
text-book.
Now some people will say that this is only another way of employing
those grammatical isolated sentences which I have declaimed
against--and they are right in so far as I admit that the more the
exercises are made to resemble the old-fashioned ones, the poorer they
are for the purpose, and if they are employed to too great an extent
they may easily degenerate into tiresome mechanical routine-work.
But if used to moderation they will only be beneficial, and then,
besides, they differ from the single sentences of the old method in
being associated with a text which has been read, so they are not thus
quite isolated from a sensible connection; they also differ because
translation is not used and is not needed (except when the teacher at
long intervals has to make sure that pupil A has understood a sentence
given by pupil C, who has used an unusual word); they differ because,
translation being omitted, the whole exercise can proceed at a rapid
pace; they differ because the sentences are constructed by the pupils
themselves, who are thus compelled all the time to pay attention
both to their form and contents; and finally they differ because, as
a result of all this, they are more interesting and amusing to the
pupils. Furthermore such exercises incite the pupils to want to say
something of their own accord, and thus they get a desire to extend
their knowledge; they will frequently ask what this or that word which
they need in a sentence is in French or German--and in that case the
teacher must always answer, but then he must always require, too, that
they _learn_ the word which has been given them (to prevent them from
getting into the habit of asking superficially and carelessly just “for
the fun of it”). Finally the pupils will thus be brought to appreciate
the benefit of learning grammar; their grammatical knowledge is not
sheer theory for them, but is continually converted into effective
power and thus becomes easier to remember, for there is no doubt that
Goethe is right when he says: “Still all that we can remember of our
studies in the end is only what we have been able to find practical use
for.”
Of course, the sentences constructed by the pupils in the course
of any one of the exercises recommended in this book may contain
mistakes, and the most serious mistakes must be corrected, yet with
as little particularity as possible, if they have nothing to do with
the phenomenon which is being or just has been carefully considered
and practised, and with as few theoretical reasons as possible. Many
exercises can be so arranged that it is scarcely possible for the
pupils to make any mistake, and this without becoming less valuable; on
the contrary, they will often be the best, for every sentence which a
pupil constructs or says correctly confirms good habits of language.
But no matter how much one may favour the theory that “Prevention
is better than cure,” it is not well to be too anxious to prevent
mistakes. One of the ablest advocates of the reform in Germany, Wendt,
says: “It is of more importance for the pupil to talk at all than to
talk correctly,” and although I know what criticism I have to expect
from unsympathetic opponents about my encouraging superficiality and
not caring a bit about correctness, yet I cannot deny myself the
pleasure of quoting with approbation a Slavic proverb, _Tko zeli dobro
govoriti mora natucati_ (whoever wants to speak well must murder the
language), which Schuchardt has chosen as a motto for his stimulating
work about mixed languages,[25] and which he interprets: “Wer aus
irgend einem grunde sich scheut eine fremde sprache zu misshandeln, der
werd sie nie beherrschen.”
In order to reassure people who cannot help feeling anxious, I
shall add here three statements from the report of the ninth German
“Neuphilologentag” (1901). Klinghardt (p. 100) confesses that he has
been converted to the reform, because, in spite of years of vigorous
efforts, he had not succeeded by means of the translation method[26]
in training the majority of his pupils to grammatical correctness.
Headmasters of schools where the old method was employed had also told
him that there were still serious grammatical mistakes of form in the
written exercises which were handed in at the final examinations. But,
after he had given up the translation procedure, all of his pupils,
even the backward ones, had attained to grammatical correctness.
Wendt (p. 101) emphatically denied that anything could be gained in
grammatical sureness by translation exercises. And Walter (p. 102)
repudiated the accusation which is always on the tongue of many of the
opponents of reform, that the reformers entirely do away with grammar,
by referring to many of these very gentlemen, who, on visiting his
school, had expressed surprise at the grammatical sureness displayed by
his pupils.
And since I now seem to be in the mood for quotations, I can also refer
to Goethe’s words: “Thus I had learned Latin, just like German, French,
English, only through practice, without rule and without system.
Anyone who knows what the state of school instruction was at that time
will not find it strange that I neglected the grammar as well as the
rhetoric; everything seemed to come naturally to me. I retained the
words, their formations and transformations in my ear and in my mind,
and I employed the language with ease for writing and talking.”[27]
In giving the pupil English sentences to translate into the foreign
language, we are only artificially creating difficulties. If it is
difficult for the pupil to translate into his mother-tongue where at
least confirmed habit ought to prevent him from falling into the worst
pitfalls, then it must be much more difficult, indeed impossible, to
translate into a foreign language where he is not yet quite at home.
We ourselves lead the pupil to make mistakes, and then we have to
do all we can to prevent his confronting us with a too overwhelming
number of them. To this end we limit each exercise to illustrating
one, or two, or three, paragraphs in the grammar; we make theoretical
rules to serve as a guide in translating, without always remembering
how difficult it is to make practical use of such rules; we bracket
the words which are not to be translated; we try to be helpful by
placing alongside of, or underneath, the correct English, some very
strange English indeed, which, however, has the advantage that it
can be translated literally, etc., etc. And the result of all this
exertion? Well, it is a well known fact that they are not always things
of beauty that we meet with in the French exercises which are handed
in after many years of toil, according to this method. Experience is
sure to teach us that this is not the means to our end. Joh. Storm is
right when he says (_Franske taleövelser_, Preface): “The worst and
most unfruitful torment in the school instruction of the present time
is the excessive use of written exercises in foreign languages.” As a
bright contrast to this “constructive” method of procedure, we have
the “imitative” method, which may be so called partly because it is
an imitation of the way in which a child learns his native language,
partly because it depends upon that invaluable faculty, the natural
imitative instinct of the pupils, to give them the proper linguistic
feeling, if it only has ample opportunity to come into play. As a motto
for this method, we might perhaps say: Away with lists and rules.
Practise what is right again and again!