Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/51

Rh that a widely used text-book in first-year Latin frankly devotes a large number of pages to English grammar to be taken up at the opening of the year before attacking the intricacies of the Latin tongue.

For the purpose of a better understanding of the material and methods employed in the university schools, about three years ago a series of conferences was begun between the teachers of the high school and of the later years of the elementary school. The material of the seventh and eighth grades and of the first year of the high school was gone over in detail. It was found at once that time was wasted in the repetition of work already done and in the failure to utilize fully some of the training already given in an earlier grade. These departmental conferences, including English, history, mathematics and modern languages, were continued at frequent intervals for a period of one or two years, and at less frequent intervals have become a part of the regular school procedure. They resulted in a thorough understanding, on the part of the teachers of both schools, of the content and method of the work of both the elementary and high schools, and made it possible for the eighth grade to enter the high school last autumn with more than half of the first year's work already accomplished and for the present seventh grade to enter the high school next autumn, thus fully eliminating the eighth grade.

In this connection it may be interesting to discuss somewhat in detail the steps taken to effect this readjustment in the different departments.

In modern languages, children have for many years begun either French or German in the fourth grade and have continued this during the remainder of the elementary school. There is no doubt that pupils at this age take up the study of a spoken foreign language with great interest and advantage. They do not take it up in the same way as it is usually taught to pupils of older years but by the end of the elementary-school course they have made very substantial progress in the use of the language in speaking, writing and understanding. We had been accustomed in the high school to carry these pupils forward in their chosen language in special classes, but they were given little substantial credit for their previous work and not infrequently found themselves before they had completed the high-school modern language courses, in the same classes as those who had begun their modern language work in the high school. The time spent in the elementary school in the study of French and German was, to some degree for all and to a very large degree for some, absolutely wasted. The modern language conferences resulted in modifications in the work and more particularly in the attitude of the teachers in both schools. Elementary teachers have been giving instruction this year in first-year high-school classes, and high-school teachers have come in frequent contact with the modern language work of the elementary school, and next year