HOW TO LEARN LANGUAGES.

Bush Advocate, Volume XI, Issue 866, 2 December 1893, Page 6

HOW TO LEARN LANGUAGES.

A VISIT TO A LADIES COLLEGE,

Share is no royal road to learning. Prince or Peer, g-antleman or peasant, has to tread the same path, strewn with rocks and boulders as xt maybe. But it can be made easier tban of yore. As in the pilgrimages of old the peas can

be boiled, and they nre. Knowledge is not thrashed into the ohild of the end of the

nineteenth century as it was into the boy bora at the commencement thereof. Kiud-

B6ss and the Kindergarten have taken the place of the cane and what was often

• oruelty. In no instance is thin ehauge more ■exemplified th*n in the teaching of ■languages. We are going back to the iirst principles of infantile instruction, and fortunate it is for the rising generation that -we are. A Jitiie child chull lend them. Pre-

«ocious ss the ohild of the end of the century

may be, ready as he or she may be fouud to ■wrestle with any subject from a dialogue of Lncan down to a serpentine dance, •it is better far for those entrusted

with the guidance of youth to guide those tendencies in the right direction than to cat their hearts out in the vain endeavour to

check them entirely.

Prominent among those languages — a knowledge of whioh is now almost essential to a boy or girl — we may fairly place the French. . It may not be now, -as.it was not so very many years since, a conversational . passport all over Europe, *nt it holds its own. It haa been recognised, too, toatthe Fienoh,; as aoquired in schools conducted on the old Knglish system, is not the French "as she ifl spoke" for the purposes of ordinary useful oonTersabon. The days lare over when » .so-called Parisian accent, pioked np fxq.m a half-educated governesa.lasted the possessor ao further than Doveror Folkestone and vanished in uselessness at Boulogne or Calais. A. Erench scholar nowadays means one ■who can not only read, write and translate Frenoh, bnt who oan speak it so as to be -understood and appreciate it so as to 'value its uses and its meanings.

It was early in the spring of lan year that Mr Howard Swan, of the " Electrical Engineer" first brought under the notice of the English editor of the " Review of Reviews" M. Gouin's scheme of teach-

ing languages, a' scheme whioh he himaelf. .calls the " open seoret of the nursery:" A capable teaohor at the Caen University, M. Gouin was sent to Germany for a, coarse of leotures. He started to learn

that "alphabetical procession" known as the German language on the regular Ollendorfian system. In ten days he had mastered the grammar. He then attended leotures, but found, as David Copperfield did when learning., shorthand, that the popular lecturer " walked away fronfhim.", arhen he tried arranging German roots in alphabetical order. A failure. Listening to conversations in shops was squally disappointing. ' Learning a dictionary by heart succeeded no better, and then he came to the conclusion that he had mistaken the " organ of language." It was not the eye, trat the. ear. Returning to France, he found his. little nephew, whom he had left a toddling" infant, just learning to speak hia . native language, and reßolved to " study in the 'same aoliool of nature." So far ai figurative language ia concerned, M. Gouin admits that you must go to the book, but in primary details he dontends for the conatant application of the principle of "a series •ot actions, with its natural and consecutive ">• order, together with representation of the actual scene in the mind's eye." . Acting on this principle, says M. Gouin, it needs only a «tudy of DOO hours. . . . In. 000 nours. say 300. lessons of thre") noun* < each, , you can acquire not only UO;00Q '„■ u'qrds, , but. these words com,- . poundpd into 100,000' sentences, and you . *wdlh&ve ma*t«red.not only'the whole language ■hue much science and history besides. "But the ordinary man does not wane to . master a whole language. To know enough Trench to feel at home in France, to be able 10 go. about Jfaria witliou} evri being at a loss to under- ' Mtand what v sairt in the street, or in the cafe, or on tbe railway, to read a French newspapi-r -with ea«e and to talk with French accant — all ' this Mr Swan maintains can be acquired thoroutzhly in six months' lessons of two hours e»cb. ' . So impressed was the editor of the "Review of. Reviews" by Mr Swan's explanation of 34^ Gouin's theory that he handed over to iim,;his own five children, of ages from seventeen* to eight, for an experiment in '.French. The experiment commenced in Hay last 'year, M. Beds, a disciple of M. <Jouin, acting "as teacher, and within the six months the children so taught underwent - successfully an examination "which, asset out in the "Review of Re-

views," would " lay out" any ordinary boy or girl who had been taught Frenoh, according to the system hitherto in vogue, for four gt five .yoaTS. They could tell a story in French. , They could explain in French a «cries ., of pictures. They } could act as ' interpreters. They . could read from a French newspaper an account of some inoi■dents of every-day life, and then reproduce it in their own words. They conld recount in the same story twice over in different ■words, and last, but certainly not least, they •would explain a grammatical table, write an -ordinary letter and join in a general conversation. To acquire all this in six monthß is the execution of a rather large order.

. Appreciating the advantages or such a W. H. Fitohett, Australian editor of the " Review of Reviews," haa introduoed it into the Methodist Ladies' College at Hawthorn, of which he is the president. It has now been in practice some eight months, und a Pres.srepresentative A-hose knowledge of French was a oquired partly under the old system in England and partly in France, has had an opportunity of induing 0 its success. It must be remembered, in connection with the efforts made at Hawthorn, - that no detailed instrnctionß for the carrying tsut of 'M. Gouin's system, beyond photographio views of an object lesson in connection with the opening of a door, -have been at the disposal of Mr Fitohett and iris staff. They are, it might be said, groping their way, but even with this handicap against them the rosnlta are suoli as to satisfy any visitor of the soundness and practical utility of the system. What the journalist saw he describes as follows?—

After allowing me a few moments to admire the handsome building and its surroundings, and to contract mentally the pleasant lines laid down for school - children now-a-days, as compared -with those laid down for them in the old days, Mr Fitchett introduced me into the class-room, rematkine briefly that he would leave me to judge for myself. In the first- room there was a mixed «übaofboyß and girls ranging from ahout • sight to twelve yeara of age. It was a hot day, butthey looked neither fagged nor tired, and seemed to treat the esson as rather a pastime than a task.' They were certainly mot shy. but jubt as certainly they were not forward, and at a word from the lady teacher settled down to business in a quiet, praotical ininner, pleasant to witness. Some ot them had received a lktlo book instruction, but what I saw and hoard waa purely the result of object and oral teaching. The little soene of opening the door, as shown In the photographic Berie3 I have alluded to, -was the first item in the educational programme. From ; her ge3t at the end of a bench rose a little dark-eyed, dark -haired delicately- featured girl, who niiuhthave sat for a model to a French paiDtcr of soonvent interior, and walked oompospdly towards this door, announcing the fact that she was doing so in perfectly correot I'rench, •with an accent and intonation that reflected the highest credit on the teacher. She had evidently not been worried much with the history of the man who didn't know any one •■else who Had pen and ink, and whose lather's brother was in the same desolate condition, the only consolation loft to him • being the fact that his mother's aunt had a penknife. In the same easy manner thu 'little lady wont through all the inovot irienta of opening the door, the other boys and girlir joining in a 'sort of chorus. •Following this scene came another descriptive of several sleepy girla getting up, dressing, - -(sitting down to breakfast— whioh two of them did in a very comfortable and easy manner,

aided therein by real tea and bread and batter— patting on hats and mantles, going to school, interchanging greetings, etc., all in the same unembarrassed and natural manner. The story of Jack' 9 unluoky house, malt and cattle speculations, was next recounted for my edification, and after a little exhibition in the way of counting, highly commendable from a memnonio point of view, the series ooncluded.

I was next introduced to a senior _ class under another teacher, and here again the most notable feature waß the pleasingly correct accent of thfi majority of the pupils, far more correct than one generally heurs, or used to hear.iv an English school under the old system. In this class two young ladies laid out a dinuer-table in a quiet, housewifely fashion, aud then sitting down, entered on » conversation in which I felt strongly inclined to join. Indeed, only that reveronce for a governess which I always felt as a boy when invading the eohoolroom, where Mademoiselle R was teaching u»v sisters, restrained me from doing so. Dinner over, another yoanjr lady started on a oulinary expedition in the direction of marmalade- malting, and after a few explanatory words with the teacher I took my leave having spent a more interesting hour than I have done for some time.

I don't think that any, in fact I am tolerably sure that none of the pupils I saw and heard could now pass the very severe test to which Mr Stead's ohildren and others trained for sis months' under M. Gouin'a system were subjected. I am equally sure that without a month's praotico I couldn't do it myself. But remembering that, as Mr Fitohett told me, these children, with no French outside or inside surroundings, have only had, on the average, two or three hours a week object study under the Gouin system, 1 confess to a feeling of surprise at the progress made. I confess also that, to my mind, unless a child has the advantage of some absolutely Frenoh surroundings, only the possession of exceptional natural ability will enable it to execute M. Gouin'a rather large order in six months. But that the Bystem is a vast improvement on the old one, I have not the slightest doubt. 1 cannot inoline so strongly as does M. Gouin to the opinion that no student ought to be allowed '•to Bee a foreign word before he hears it, and masters both itp significance and its pronunciation" bat, like all other* who have been badgered and worried under the old grammar and dialogue system— l would gladly welcome for my own children, or those of other people, the # extension of such a spstem as I have seen illustrated at Hawthorn. For the rest, if Mr Fitchett and his'staff can, in another six months, or even a year, turn out the pnpils I saw capable of faoing the ordeal set out in the " Review of Reviews " I shall consider them as most snooeasful experimentalists in a divergence from a beaten path which has too long been painful y trodden. Nous verrona !