Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/575

Rh the language of the foreigner he is trying to teach, so much the better. But this knowledge is not essential. In this way the most ignorant person will soon acquire a few hundred words and phrases which will be a nucleus about which he may enlarge his vocabulary as much as he pleases. Although his pronunciation will be very faulty, he will be able to express himself in a way, and to understand fairly well what is said to him. When teacher and pupil are equally in earnest progress will usually be quite rapid up to a certain point. This point is difficult to pass. For the successful teaching of Latin and Greek to schoolboys a much higher degree of pedagogical ability is essential. Here the teacher has to deal with complex thoughts strangely expressed and more or less above the comprehension of the learner, one of the objects of this kind of instruction being to train his mind up to them. The instructor should not only have a competent knowledge of the language he teaches; he should also have psychological insight, fertility in resources, vivacity of manner and a good measure of literary training. When pupils are only half in earnest or somewhat defective in verbal memory, and the teacher lacks any or all of the above-named qualifications, instruction is "up-hill work," and the results decidedly unsatisfactory. My personal observation of the teaching of Latin and Greek leads me to believe that there is generally too much grammatical hair-splitting and too little reading. A teacher needs to know very little about a language to be able to spend day after day with a class discussing verbal niceties. The serious student of a foreign language soon discovers the method that is best for him, and his progress is usually rapid. In any case the textbook ought to occupy an inconspicuous place.

With the advancing years our educational system will supply more and more fully the needs of the rising generation. The time is not far distant when schools will be called into being wherein everything will be taught that is worth learning. So far as languages are concerned, there will always be persons who will study them for their literature rather than for their practical value. There will always be professors of Latin and Greek, although it is a misnomer to call the latter a dead language. It is more alive than the English of Chaucer. Besides, it may be predicted with confidence that those persons whose native tongue is English will have less and less need to learn any other, except for a more or less permanent residence abroad.