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—

—all, of course, faculties that are nearly related—also

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.