The following excellent plan for the study of French at home has been proposed by Prof. Lalande. It meets with the hearty approval of Dr. Vincent, and will, we trust, find favor with many. The prospectus speaks for itself.

CHAUTAUQUA SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES.
FRENCH CIRCLE.

PROSPECTUS.

I. AIM.

This new organization aims to assist students of the French language to overcome the idiomatic and other difficulties of interpretation, as well as to acquire general facility in reading and writing French.

To this end it is intended to organize a French circle for regular and systematic home study, to be directed through the mail by Prof. A. Lalande.

Every member of the French circle will receive certain exercises, comprising a definite amount of reading, translating, and idiomatic and grammatic expounding, to be performed by the members and mailed to the Professor.

These exercises will be corrected by Prof. Lalande and returned to the student with notes and suggestions adapted to his individual needs. This series of graduated exercises will carry the student over all important difficulties in the language, and the required readings, etc., will insure to the faithful student such attainments in the French language as will fit him to profit fully thereafter by the most advanced instruction in class, or under a living teacher.

II. COURSE OF STUDY.

The course of study prescribed by the French circle will be divided into the following arrangement of classes:

First—Primary.

Second—Intermediate.

Third—Advanced.

(1) Primary.—In this department the students will have to translate into French the exercises contained in Fasquelle’s French course, and will also answer in French the easy questions sent to them by the Professor.

(2) Intermediate.—Pupils will be required to translate into French exercises prepared by the Professor, and study under his direction “Causeries avec mes ÉlÈves,” by L. Sauveur, and NoËl & Chapsal’s French grammar.

(3) Advanced.—This class will study the French grammar and literature, and translate into French, under the direction of the Professor, some selections from Irving’s “Sketch Book.”

III. TIME OF STUDY.

Each pupil will receive twenty-five letters during the term, which will begin the 1st of September and end the 1st of the following July.

Persons may enter at any time and back numbers will be sent to them.

IV. APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP.

Persons desiring to enter the French circle should write to Prof. Lalande, answering the following questions:

1. Give your name in full.

2. Your postoffice address, with county and State.

3. The proficiency of French already attained.

V. TERMS.

To defray the expenses of correspondence, etc., an annual fee of seven dollars ($7.00) will be required. This amount should be forwarded to Prof. A. Lalande, one-half at the beginning of the term, and the balance after the twelfth exercise.

Note.—At the expiration of one term all students who understand the course which they have been studying, will be advanced into the one above it; and after having completed the entire course and passed a satisfactory examination, they will receive a diploma signed by the president and the professor.

SIX REASONS FOR THE STUDY OF GERMAN.

Ever since Carlyle began to study and translate the German literature, the German language has been growing in favor with English speaking people. For years past in the United States, it has held a large place in the curricula of colleges, academies, and even the public schools. Extremists, in some cases, have gone so far as to propose the exclusion of one or both of the old tongues and the substitution of German. Whilst such practice would be extreme, it is but just to say that all attention and study thus far have been worthily bestowed. The following are a few of the many valid reasons for the study of German:

1. This language possesses, in an unusual degree, those qualities which give discipline to the mind. One of the greatest linguists and comparative philologists of the age, has ranked it not inferior, but superior to the Greek in this regard. The German is an inflected language like the Latin. This gives exercise to memory, and demands the utmost exactitude in construction. At the same time it has synthetic power, a capacity of word-building unsurpassed by any other language; so that the nicest shades of meaning can be expressed, thus giving the mind an exercise of the highest disciplinary character.

2. German ought to be studied, if for no other reason, for its wealth of literature. The student can not come into full sympathy and appreciation with these mines of literary riches except by the avenue of the language in which they are found. Much and the best is lost in translations. It ought to be borne in mind that as students for centuries past have toiled over Greek and Latin for the sake of the old masters in literature, that the same reason should incite to the study of German. For one of the four Titans of literature was a German, and besides Goethe, there is Schiller, Lessing, Klopstock, Wieland, Herder, Richter, and others, making a literary bloom comparable to that of the English age of Elizabeth. It belongs in its fullness and beauty only to the German scholar.

3. To the student of theology or science the German language is of very great value and importance, especially to the former. A scholar in divinity recently said, “Hebrew, Greek, and German are indispensable to the theological student.” Joseph Cook discredits Mr. Herbert Spencer in many things, because, as he says, he “doesn’t know German.” Certain it is that whilst happily we are not obliged to accept all the views and notions of German theologians, yet not to be abreast with the results of German investigations and discoveries in the various departments of theology is to lag behind the advanced knowledge and thought of the times. And here in many instances it is impossible to rely on translations, for many of the best works are not translated. Owing to the cost and difficulty of translation they are not likely to be, and when they are the process is slow, and the result often unsatisfactory.

4. The American student should study German with a view to converse easily with his neighbor of that tongue and nationality. Living, as we do, neighbor to two Germanies, it is of no little commercial and social advantage to speak their language. One of these Germanies is established on our own soil, and we meet and mingle with it every day; the other, with the facilities for travel and communication, is as near to us as the remote parts of our own nation are to each other. Not to be able to speak their tongue, but always to compel them to speak ours, is to meet them on unequal ground.

5. The large and growing demand for teachers of German is a practical inducement to those who contemplate the teaching profession. Not only in the college and university, where broad courses of study in German, including the history and literature, are provided, but in the graded schools of the smaller towns, school boards are including German, and are seeking teachers competent to give such instruction.

6. Last, though not the least of the reasons here given for the study of German, is that which arises from its relationship to our own English tongue. Both the German and the Saxon are the descendants of the old Gothic, the language of Ulfilas, in which he wrote the famous “Codex Argentens.” It is estimated that thirty per cent. of our English is of Saxon origin, enough to establish a strong connection, making cousins, at least, between English and German. Thus we observe that many of the commonest household words are often the same in sound, and many times in orthography. To the philologist such relations and correspondences are of great interest and importance. They furnish some explanation of the resemblances to be observed between the race, types, usages, and domestic institutions.

HINTS TO BEGINNERS IN THE STUDY OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK.—II.

By Rev. ALFRED A. WRIGHT, A.M.[J]

3. Moments Undervalued.—A young collegiate of our acquaintance during his four years’ course read every word in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, correcting his spelling and his pronunciation thereby, and acquired an almost inexhaustible fund of information as to the derivation of words. It was all done in odd moments; scraps of time useless for regular work; time that some people spend in gossip, yawns, plannings to vault to the moon, or in misanthropy.

A German critic memorized every line of Homer’s Iliad while going from one medical patient to another.

Bishop Gilbert Haven dropped quills from a flying wing as he flew across continents and seas, and the snowy feathers fell in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and New York.

Moments are gold dust. Sweep every one up. The assayer washes his hands in water that is carefully saved. His men at the benches save every filing of the precious ore. His shop boy sweeps the very dirt into a safe. His workmen clean their feet upon a mat as they go home from work. All this to save a little gold. And yet that gold is worth, in large establishments, more than one thousand dollars annually.

You can learn Greek by saving minutes. And the mental discipline gained in the endeavor will in itself be worth a fortune to you. You will learn to save moments on other accounts.

Henry Clay, speaking about courtesies of a trivial character as affording gratification to others, says, “It is the picayune compliments which are most appreciated.” He does not give us the philosophy of the fact. Possibly it is to be found in this, that we all have an abundance of this small change, and fling it forth as being valueless. But “picayune” moments must be better treated.

Dr. Johnson is credited with the saying, “The habit of looking on the bright side of things is worth a thousand pounds a year to any man.”

The habit of saving moments is worth more than thousands of gold and silver.

[To be continued.]