Like most works on pedagogy, this one too has been mostly concerned with the teaching of beginners. But now and then there has been a word about the instruction of advanced pupils, and now I shall add a few more suggestions about it. It is best to continue on the same lines as during the first years, only making those changes which circumstances necessarily demand.

The pupils must read—read more and more, read better and better books, books whose contents are of a nature to hold their attention and to give them as much all round information and development as possible—accordingly, as has been previously suggested, not solely works of literature. That sort of reading is especially good which gives the pupils some insight into the foreign nation’s peculiarity in the widest sense of the word, and best of all is that reading which is apt to make the pupils love what is best in the foreign people. Tennyson is right when he says, “It is the authors, more than the diplomats, who make nations love one another”;[54] and teachers of modern languages should ever remember that it is their mission to make their countrymen know and understand foreign nations. By making their pupils read good literature as well as by capacitating the younger generations of different countries for intelligent intercourse with one another, language-teachers all over the world may ultimately prove more efficacious in establishing good permanent relations between the nations than Peace Congresses at the Hague.

Some reading must be taken thoroughly, some may be cursory; it is perhaps best to have several gradations. Whereas in the beginning it is necessary to chew well in order to get all the linguistic nourishment out of the reading, later on it may of course be taken in larger and larger bites. Already rather early in the course of instruction, those pieces may be more lightly passed over whose contents are scarcely fit to be taken too seriously or which contain words which it is not absolutely necessary to remember. The teacher may simply let the pupils read such pieces aloud, explaining every word which they do not understand, but without basing any questions on them, and without requiring them to be studied for the next time. Later on, in the midst of more serious work, a month or two may be taken for reading a light novel through in the same easy manner. The pupils may also have private reading to do at home in addition to what they read in school. The teacher that I had in French and English in the upper classes in Frederiksborg School (H. Mathiesen) had an excellent way of making us desire of our own accord to read novels in the language studied; each one of us was ambitious to give in the longest list of volumes read when the teacher called for the lists at the first lesson in every month, and even if we of course read very rapidly and never looked up any words, yet we learned a good deal, and I consider the habit of reading which I thus acquired to be one of the most valuable acquisitions that I got during my last years in school. In order to test whether we really had read the books as stated, our teacher sometimes talked to us about their contents, but he talked in Danish, sometimes he only made us open the books at random and translate a little piece. It is no doubt better to organize this practice, as it is now done in some parts of Germany, where the whole class reads the same book at home and must have read a certain amount by a certain day (after a fortnight’s or a month’s interval). Then they must be able to give an account of the contents in the foreign language, must also ask each other questions about the book, and may even occasionally be required to write down the contents as a written exercise; after the teacher has looked through these accounts, the pupils may deliver them orally and more freely, and this will give occasion for further conversation—all in the foreign language.

Most important, however, is the reading which is done thoroughly, so thoroughly that the pupils completely master both contents and language, and which therefore in both these respects ought to be as good as possible. In exercises with questions and answers, the contents naturally play an important part, and even if the pupils feel it is one aim, and a very important one, to acquire skill in the language, yet this aim is not always directly kept in view as such; neither does a child talk in order to practise using its mother-tongue, but in order to get some information and in order to communicate itself to others—and thereby it learns the language. This feeling of reality becomes more and more prominent as the pupils become more advanced; in the conversations, the pupils show directly, that they understand the contents, indirectly that they understand the language.

The pupils must talk—about what they have read, and that the talks are not mere farces with conventional “parleur” phrases, as our opponents would like to make out, I hope that I have shown sufficiently well.[55] When a certain teacher wrote somewhere that all the conversation that there is time for consists of the following five questions, which are asked of the monitor (and only of him) at the beginning of every lesson: “Who is the monitor? What date is it to-day? What day of the week is it? Who is absent? What have you prepared for to-day?”, and that he owes it to the truth to confess that it is only the minority of the pupils who at the end of the year are able to answer these questions correctly without hesitation, then this deplorable result is primarily due to the fewness of the questions; he who only gets the tip of his finger dipped in the water three times in twenty weeks will never learn how to swim. It is secondarily due to the fact that the questions are stereotyped and have no connection with what the class is reading. Furthermore this same teacher says that he generally cannot spend more than a few minutes of each lesson on these “elementary exercises,” since the reading, translation and grammar requires the rest of the time, in the middle classes, indeed, all the time, so that at this stage there is no time at all for any conversation. But if the talks are used for interpreting the text, two big birds are killed with one stone, and then it will soon be seen that skill in speaking increases like wealth; if you have only reached a certain point, the rest comes of its own accord; the accumulated capital multiplies surprisingly fast and willingly.

The pupils must write—original papers in the foreign language, not translations—that is, the form of language used must be as little as possible suggested by English turns of expression. But the subject must be concrete and limited. The chief danger that there may be in such original written exercises, namely that the pupils avoid all the difficulties and only use a slender supply of expressions, which they feel sure of, this danger is greater the vaguer or more comprehensive the subject is. For instance, it is best not to give broad literary subjects, such as “Die romantische schule,” etc. A more limited subject is far better, both as an exercise and as a test; for instance, an account of a little anecdote or of the newspaper report of some event, which the teacher has read to the class; a description of what is to be seen on a picture, a renarration of some episode in the novel or in the historical selection which is being read in class, possibly in the form of a letter;[56] a summing up of everything relating to one of the characters in the text read; a review of the line of thought in (a section of) some essay which has been read; a paraphrase of some poem. Still more limited are such exercises in which a certain number of questions have to be answered, or such exercises in the use of synonymous words and expressions as have been described on p. 139.

But can such a method of instruction as has here been described really be carried out under existing circumstances? Are there not obstacles to be encountered on every hand? Yes; unfortunately there are things which stand in the way and make a good deal of trouble, but luckily they do not make it quite impossible for the new system to be used. As hindrances may be mentioned the shortness of the time, the apportionment of the time, the examinations, the teachers.

The time which is now set apart for modern languages is too brief. Therefore all teachers of modern languages ought to unite, and, together with all the parents who are dissatisfied with the arrangements in our grammar schools (and they are not few), they ought to agitate for the removal of that burden which weighs heavily on the school and which prevents the growing generation from getting an education which can meet the urgent demands of our times, I mean, the school must be delivered from the classical languages; then there will be air and space for all that is now shoved into the background, among other things the modern foreign languages.[57] But—even in the scanty time which is now at disposal, there is much that can be done differently and better than hitherto, and the more the teachers in modern languages show this, and the more they can keep out of the old jogtrot way, the more will their subject be respected, and the more willingness will there be to extend the time when future reforms demand it.

The apportionment of the time is poor. When will people finally realize that everything cannot be learned at once? Many subjects, and with so few hours a week for each that the pupils forget what they have learned from one lesson to the next—that is a frightful waste of time.

No, learn a few things or one thing at a time, learn everything well and learn it to the end before passing on to the next.[58] And especially with respect to languages, there can be no doubt that it is best to take them up one after the other, not side by side; to every language that is taken up should be devoted many hours a week, and as a rule two years ought to be allowed to pass before commencing a new language; then the first is so firmly rooted in the minds of the pupils that merely a very few lessons a week will be sufficient for keeping it up and extending it,[59] and then the two languages do not injure each other nearly as much as if they were studied side by side before the pupils have mastered either one of them. As to the question at what age the children ought to begin to learn foreign languages, I dare not express any decided opinion; I think I should be afraid to begin too early rather than too late; first let the mother tongue have time enough to take a firm and lasting hold of the child’s mind before other languages are admitted.

The worst canker in our school-system[60] is the examinations. Everything is arranged with a view to examinations; the parents, the children, and unfortunately also a number of the teachers care for nothing but the results attained in the examinations; the daily instruction is left to shift for itself, but the authorities will take ample care to guard against the least bit of negligence which might be shown by the examiners.

Examinations compel the teachers to lay undue stress on cramming. “Cram may be defined as the accumulation of undigested facts and second-hand theories to be reproduced on paper, handed in to the examiner, and then forgotten for ever. A crammed examinee differs from a crammed Strasburg goose in not assimilating his nutriment, and this would be a real advantage were it not that the process leaves him with a nauseated appetite, enfeebled reasoning powers, though abnormally enlarged memory, and a general distaste for disinterested study.”[61]

Examinations cause the mental and physical ruin of many more young men than we can afford. As a test of what a young man is worth in life, an examination is without any value whatever; as a test of how much really valuable knowledge he has, it is not worth much; and even as a test of how much he knows of what happens to be asked him on such an occasion, an examination is not nearly as reliable as people like to imagine.[62] And then examinations tend in so many ways to impede instruction which would otherwise be really profitable. The question “will that be required for the examination?” is always, either consciously or unconsciously, present in the schoolroom; it smothers the teacher’s enthusiasm for communicating to his pupils what interests himself most; and it discourages the pupils’ natural thirst for knowledge for its own sake. Just before the examinations, the whole school is seized with its yearly attack of its chronic examination-catarrh. In all departments, it is considered necessary to recapitulate for examinations; for a couple of months, the pupils are transformed into mental ruminants; they receive no new mental sustenance whatever, but have to be satisfied with going through the whole year’s work once or twice more at as rapid a pace as possible. The matter which they have been given does not become more savoury on being served again; all the juice and strength, all that makes it tempting is lost, and nothing remains but what is toughest and dryest.

But even if there is much fault to be found with the system of examinations, yet it is not necessary to reform that before we can begin to improve the instruction. The examination requirements are not so great that we cannot meet them even if we do not from the very beginning plan all our instruction exactly with them in view. Although the chief stress in the examination may be laid on the translation and not on speaking, yet that is no reason why the latter should be entirely dispensed with. If by a receptive command of a foreign language is meant the ability to understand it, and by a productive command, the power to express oneself in the language, then I am fully convinced that anyone who merely concerns himself with the receptive side of it injures himself and acquires far less ability to understand it than if he had from the very beginning also aimed at a productive command of the language. Therefore our all round exercises will give our pupils at least just as much receptive knowledge of the language as is attained by the pupils of others; and even if it is rather provoking for a teacher who has taken a good deal of trouble to teach his pupils to speak to see that this counts for little or nothing at the examination, he can comfort himself with a good conscience at any rate—beside the pleasure which he and his pupils have had in their daily work together.

Nor ought any consideration for examinations to prevent anyone from the best kind of recapitulation, which is, not to wait until the approach of examinations, when much that has been read is forgotten, so that the teacher has to be on the lookout all the time to make sure that the pupils understand everything, but to take it up while the matter is still fresh in the memory, so that it is not necessary to sound the pupils on every little point. Every chapter ought to be revised when it is finished, and every section or book ought to be gone over as a whole. Then the thoughts which were formerly occupied with details may be turned to the connected whole, and since the work can be conducted in the form of almost uninterrupted intelligent reading aloud, the pupils will be enabled to get approximately the same impression and the same enjoyment out of the matter read as a native gets.[63] If the reading has thus been gone over a section at a time at each natural break, it will be seen at the examination that these short revisions distributed throughout the year are more advantageous than a long, tedious recapitulation just before the examination, and besides the pupils have been kept fresh by reading something new up to the very end.

As the last possible impediment in the way of the reform method, I mentioned the teachers. Those times are now past when it was considered sufficient for a teacher of modern languages to have taken a degree in law or theology—to have studied Tacitus and Plato, and then by way of amusement to have read by himself a few volumes of Revue des deux mondes or some novels by Cherbuliez and Freytag. But even the younger generation of teachers who are better prepared will very often find that it is not so very easy to give good instruction in modern languages. It is a shame how little is done to give high-school teachers opportunities for further improvement; they ought to have abundant access to courses in advanced work, but especially to many and liberal travelling scholarships, so that no conscientious teacher in foreign languages need do without a tolerably long stay among the people whose language he (she) teaches. Poor pay and long hours, too, naturally lead to a teacher’s looking merely to examination results.

But still I continue to hope that more and more teachers will avoid the old rut, and they will surely find that it pays to get out of it, even if, especially in the beginning, they have to expend more time and energy on their teaching, and on their preparation for every lesson, in order to meet the greater demands of the new methods. In Germany and the Scandinavian countries, exceedingly great efforts are being made to reform the instruction in languages; in Norway, much of what has been recommended in this book has even been adopted in the official school-plans issued in 1897;[64] and fortunately the movement is also on the way to becoming strong in England. If this book by a foreigner can contribute ever so little to the encouragement and support of English language-teachers in their zealous and able efforts to introduce newer and better methods, then I am glad to have been enabled in this manner to pay off a little of the debt that I owe to England and to many Englishmen.

In closing let me try to sum up. The old-fashioned disconnected sentences proved to be a failure for many reasons, and one reason was because there was nothing else to do with them but to translate them. They could arouse no interest; they could not even be read aloud intelligently; they could not be remembered in that definite form which they happened to have, so they could not be used as patterns for the construction of other sentences; therefore the rules of the grammar, which was committed to memory, came to play such an important part. It all became monotonous and lifeless.

Our method tries to employ many means which mutually support each other. The pronunciation is not learned merely by the teacher’s saying the word and the pupils repeating it, or by the pupil’s guessing at it through the orthography and the teacher’s correcting him. The latter plan we reject entirely; the former, however, we use even to a larger extent than before, and we adopt in addition to it a rational description and indication of sounds. The improved pronunciation thus acquired also helps in a high degree in the acquiring of the other (signification) side of the language. Where formerly there was no other way of communicating the meaning of words but through translation, we have in addition thereto direct and indirect observation, explanations in the foreign language, etc. Where the pupils formerly had to commit to memory paradigms, rigmaroles and rules, which all had to be taken on faith, we let them investigate for themselves and thus get an insight into the construction of the language. And whereas formerly the only exercises were translation from the mother tongue into the foreign language, we now have a whole scale of varying exercises, namely: direct reproduction (repetition of the teacher’s words; answers to questions which are based directly upon the words of the book)—modified reproduction (repetition of sentences with changes of tense, person, etc.; answers to freer questions; asking of questions)—free reproduction (renarration) and finally—free production (letters, etc.). And since there is a sensible meaning in all that is read or said or done, the interest is awakened and held, and the instruction becomes not only varied, but what especially beseems living languages, it becomes in the deepest and best sense of the word really living.