The Preparation ^\\ v 
 
 OF 
 
 Modern Language Teachers 
 
 FOR 
 
 American Institutions. 
 
 BY 
 
 E. H. BABBITT. 
 
 READ BEFORE THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION, 
 DECEMBER, 1891. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 Press of Styles & Cash, 77 Eighth Avenue. 
 
i 
 
The 
 
 Preparation of Modern Language Teachers 
 for American Institutions. 
 
 The best teacher of modern languages for some purposes 
 requires no .conscious preparation at all. For all children be- 
 low the age at which they enter our secondary schools, the 
 objective point is the ability to speak the language — an art 
 merely, which has nothing to do with any scientific knowledge, 
 and which is best acquired from a French or German nurse- 
 maid, or some such person, to whom the language is an inherit- 
 ance, and its fluent use a necessity of nature. 
 
 The lowest grade in our educational system where we find 
 work in modern languages for which professional teachers 
 need professional preparation, is in the secondary schools. 
 Here we meet at once the commonest problem of all which we 
 have to consider in our work. Given a class of boys or young 
 men, who have perhaps two years on an average to study a 
 modern language, how shall we shape our instruction so that 
 they may get the best returns from the work they can do in 
 that limited time? It seems to be generally agreed that 
 a practical reading knowledge of the language is the main end 
 for such students, both because it is the most valuable acquisi- 
 tion that can be made in the time to spare, and because, in 
 ordinary circumstances, this line of work forms the only feasi- 
 ble basis for uniform and successful class-room instruction. At 
 the same time this plan allows those students who wish to pur- 
 sue the study of the language further, in other lines, to use all 
 the work they have already done, and also allows full scope 
 for the really very valuable mental discipline to which I called 
 attention in my paper last year.* 
 
 * Publications , Vol. VI., No. 1. 
 
2 
 
 In many cases this practical elementary work is not begun 
 till after the students are in college. Here we meet students 
 who have already had a good deal of linguistic training in 
 their study of the classics, and thus differ from the boys in the 
 secondary and scientific schools, to whom a foreign language 
 is a new thing. For instance, with a class of college students 
 who have done the usual amount of thinking over their con- 
 ditional sentences in Latin and Greek, the subject of condi- 
 tional sentences in German can be disposed of in a lesson or 
 two; but a class of boys who meet for the first time this mat- 
 ter of general grammar must spend weeks in getting it cleared 
 up, whatever the language may be that furnishes fhe material 
 for study. Much more can therefore be expected in the way of 
 quantity and quality of work from college students than from 
 the others referred to ; it is quite possible to give a class of them 
 a sufficient knowledge of French in one year, or of German in 
 two years, to enable them to use text-books in those languages. 
 
 The majority of our college students never go beyond this 
 point in the subject. Those who do, pursue it either as a col- 
 lege or a university study — as a factor in a general liberal edu- 
 cation, or with the intention of teaching the subject. For the 
 larger class who pursue it as a culture-study, several lines of 
 work are possible. Practice in expression in a foreign 
 language, especially French, gives excellent discipline for the 
 linguistic sense. Philology proper belongs rather to the uni- 
 versity side of the subject, but an enthusiastic teacher often 
 draws college students into it with good results. But the great- 
 est part by far of the instruction for this class of students comes 
 under the head of that much-abused word, literature. 
 
 There is no line of study that will make a college sopho- 
 more into a competent literary critic. Nothing will do that 
 but a certain number of years spent in contact with the life 
 and thought of the world, and a proper use and development 
 of a sound judgment which must be present to begin with. 
 And yet there is no more responsive soil on which to sow 
 the seeds of culture than the mind of a student at this age, and 
 few better opportunities for doing so than come from just such 
 courses as are given in the third and fourth year work in 
 
 < 
 
3 
 
 modern languages at our colleges — courses based on the study 
 of the best works written in those languages, with all the side- 
 lights from philology, literary criticism, philosophy and history, 
 which the teacher can bring to bear from all the resources of 
 his own study and his own intellectual life. 
 
 As to university instruction, it is only necessary to say that 
 it must be of the most thorough and special kind. The future 
 teacher must have the discipline of feeling bottom somewhere 
 in the sea of learning. Now as the bottom comes nearer the 
 surface in the region of philology than elsewhere in our de- 
 partment, students naturally turn their attention largely in 
 that direction. This is legitimate, if only one is sure of a 
 sufficient intellectual stature to be able to stand on that bottom 
 and have a respectable mental horizon. 
 
 Viewed from the teacher’s standpoint, university work in 
 the modern languages in this country forms but an almost in- 
 finitesimal part of the whole body of work in the field. In 
 very many of our colleges the instruction does not go beyond 
 elementary work. And even in those few institutions where 
 real university work is done, the amount of work in this par 
 ticular field is less than in others, on account of the special 
 reasons for studying in this line abroad. The records of the 
 work done in modern languages at our universities will show 
 that very little of it is beyond the grade of college work, and 
 that there is seldom a genuine demand for any advanced 
 course which cannot perfectly well be given by any teacher 
 who is properly prepared for this college work. 
 
 A proper preparation for college teaching means, however, 
 much more than is generally demanded by those who employ 
 teachers. I wish to call your attention to an apparently 
 trivial matter which has unexpectedly deep significance on 
 this point. 
 
 It is a commonplace to all members of this Association, 
 that knowing how to speak a language and knowing how to 
 read it are too very different things. It sounds like a sweep- 
 ing statement to say that no one who has not taught the sub- 
 ject knows how great this difference really is, but I will even 
 venture to say that many who are teachers of modern languages 
 
4 
 
 fail to see tlie importance of the distinction. Speaking a lan- 
 guage is as purely an art as is playing a musical instrument. The 
 art of speaking a language not one’s own is useful to many 
 people who wish to communicate with those who speak it ; it 
 is further regarded as a pretty accomplishment for young 
 ladies and others who may possibly make little or no practical 
 use of it. This art has been taught for centuries by a large 
 and more or less respectable body of persons, and their instruc- 
 tion has its traditions and methods, which are embodied in 
 text-books of the Ollendorf kind. 
 
 Now, when some years ago there arose a general demand 
 for instruction in modern languages in our colleges, the col- 
 lege authorities went to the young ladies’ boarding-schools, or 
 wherever these foreign language teachers were to be found, 
 and set the best they could get of them to doing the work in 
 the colleges. They brought their traditions with them, and 
 continued to emphasize the education of the ear, and to quar- 
 rel, with the intolerance of all empiricists, over minor matters 
 of accent and pronunciation. Their methods were accepted 
 generally without question, and held the field for a long time, 
 as they do still among the laity. 
 
 Occasionally, however, for lack of a Frenchman or Ger- 
 man to teach his language, an American teacher who had per- 
 haps been abroad, or had more than the usual amount of 
 instruction in a modern language, was set to teaching it. 
 Such teachers, being less sure of their knowledge of the 
 foreign language than of English, did their work on a trans- 
 lation basis and taught their pupils to read, rather than speak, 
 the language ; and the reading knowledge of students taught 
 in this way was often better than that of those who had spent 
 much more time under the old plan. Whatever readiness in 
 speaking the latter might have acquired did not appear under 
 any examination test, nor as meeting any need in the way of 
 foundation for further studies. Now, the fact that the pupils 
 of any fair teacher who had a smattering of a foreign language 
 could meet the tests prepared by those who held the position 
 of the only authorities on the subject, and the fact that these 
 latter treated their work from the same point of view that 
 
5 
 
 musicians and writing-masters treat theirs, tended to throw 
 the whole line of work into disrepute, and to establish the 
 impression which, as I said above, is still in full force among 
 the laity (to which we may safely reckon most college trustees 
 and many college presidents), that any kind of a “ Dutchman” 
 or “ dago,” or broken-down minister, is competent to give 
 what has seemed to be the recognized quality of instruction in 
 the subject. This impression still prevails to a lamentable 
 extent in many quarters, but the day of better things is com- 
 ing, and the next generation of modern language teachers 
 will do better work than the present one. 
 
 The only effective teacher in any field is the one who has 
 thoroughly taken his professional bearings — who has adopted 
 the work from the honest conviction that ‘he is fitted by 
 nature to do it, and intends to make it his life-work. A 
 teacher who is an enthusiast in his subject is better than one 
 who is not, but no amount of enthusiasm for a subject can 
 blind a true teacher to the fundamental fact of his calling — 
 fthat the subject is taught for its effect on the minds of his 
 pupils, not that their minds exist as a medium for propagating i 
 knowledge of the subject. The field of modern languages' 
 belongs emphatically to the pedagogue rather than to the 
 scientific enthusiast. JS T ine-tenths of the work done must 
 always be of an elementary nature. Such work involves a 
 great deal of drudgery, from which in itself there is no legiti 
 mate escape. The standard of perfection in the practical 
 knowledge of a modern language is so evident and so near at 
 hand, that any man of scholarly tendencies is sure to be so 
 far in advance of his pupils that he is liable to chafe under 
 the unavoidable repetitions and task-work, utdess his peda- 
 gogical is greater than his scientific interest — unless his subject- 
 matter is merely a means to an end, and his greatest profes- 
 sional satisfaction comes from turning out each year’s class a 
 little better trained than the one before it. 
 
 But a language teacher has some relief from drudgery 
 which a teacher of mathematics, for instance, has not. The 
 most elementary language-study has a connection with human 
 thought and interest which no study of mere things can have ; 
 
6 
 
 and thus even here, though of course in a much greater 
 degree as we approach literature rather than mere language- 
 drill, the personality of the teacher comes into play as a 
 culturing factor. A teacher is capable of inspiring and 
 uplifting a class just about in proportion to the size of his 
 personality as a man of culture. There is no field in the pro- 
 fession where a man of thoroughly catholic mind and a sure 
 sense of the meaning of the world’s thought can do more 
 to bring a class up from their intellectual level toward his 
 own ; and none where a mere pedant, who has grammatical or 
 philological hobbies to ride, can waste more golden opportuni- 
 ties. And yet few subjects make so great demands upon the 
 teacher in the way of wide and definite knowledge. The 
 standard of correct use for a language is of course an empirical 
 matter, but just for that reason those who uphold the standard 
 are the more intolerant of variations from it. The amount of 
 practical ability in handling a language required from a 
 teacher is much greater in the case of living than of dead 
 languages. No teacher of a modern language can be thor- 
 oughly efficient unless his command of it as a practical 
 medium of thought is sufficient to enable him to think in it 
 and feel its idiom pretty thoroughly his own. 
 
 And, on the other hand — aside from the fact that no 
 person can manage a class of American boys unless he can 
 think in English as readily as they can — no one can make 
 translation work of any value to his pupils on its most valuable 
 side, unless his English is really good English — better than 
 theirs is likely to be, as boys on the average come to us now. 
 
 And last, but not least, no teacher can be thoroughly 
 inspiring and useful to his pupils whose knowledge of his 
 subject is not so thorough and extensive as to give them a 
 genuine respect fur his attainments as a scholar. It is not so 
 very important whether his special work has been done in the 
 exact lines of his teaching, provided his knowledge in those 
 lines is sufficient to meet completely all questions that 
 may arise. He ought, however, to know the language he is 
 teaching, not only practically, but also historically, to be 
 familiar with the nearest related languages, and, on the 
 
7 
 
 literary side, to have a good notion of the chapter in human 
 life and thought which produced the w T orks he is to study. It 
 is hardly necessary to say that no live teacher will let a year 
 pass without making some additions to this fund of exact 
 knowledge which he possesses and can use in his work. 
 
 I do not believe that a teacher can be notably deficient in 
 any of the five directions that I have indicated, without im- 
 pairing seriously his professional usefulness — so seriously as to 
 shut him out from the very foremost rank in the profession. 
 The discussion of the first of these five heads belongs, how- 
 ever, rather to a paper on the preparation of teachers in gen- 
 eral than here. This is also true of the second, except that 
 breadth of culture in the personality of the teacher counts for 
 more here than in fields which have to do more with 
 things, and less with human relations, and that a special topic 
 arises out of the question of foreign-born teachers. 
 
 To the unprofessional mind, it seems to be almost a matter 
 of course that the person who knows a language best is one to 
 whom it is the mother-tongue, and therefore that such persons 
 should naturally teach it. If, however, we look to those 
 countries where the science of education has been longest and 
 most carefully studied, we find the settled policy of employ- 
 ing natives who have been abroad to study modern foreign 
 languages, to teach those languages in the schools. And in 
 spite of the stubborn resistance of the lay mind, which I have 
 referred to already, this policy is rapidly gaining ground in 
 the higher institutions in this country. I cannot go exhaus- 
 tively into the reason for this course, but some of the con- 
 siderations are as follows : A person who comes to a country 
 at an adult age is a foreigner, and generally remains a 
 foreigner in his ways of thinking and feeling and living. I 
 said before that the personality of the teacher is the most im- 
 portant factor in his professional activity ; if his personality is 
 such that it fails to find the best points of touch with the 
 personalities of his students, then he fails to get that sympa- 
 thetic community of thought on which so much depends. 
 And if, as is so often the case with foreign-born teachers, he 
 never acquires that command of English which makes him 
 
8 
 
 superior to them in their own medium of thought ; he remains 
 to that extent under a handicap which impairs his usefulness. 
 These considerations do not apply, be it observed, to men who 
 come to this country young enough to become thoroughly 
 Americanized in character and language before they enter 
 upon their work. Some of our very best teachers belong to 
 this class of men. 
 
 Another point, perhaps less well understood, but of more 
 general application, may be illustrated by a case which came 
 under my own observation. A careful and conscientious 
 teacher, a German by birth and education, who had learned 
 French at school as a foreign language, taught it, as was ad- 
 mitted by all, much better than German, his mother-tongue, 
 which he undoubtedly spoke, and used in every way, much 
 better than French. It is self-evident that a man who has 
 been driven in a close carriage through the streets of a city 
 cannot direct another regarding them so well as one who has 
 made his way on foot, with map in hand. The fact that a 
 person who has acquired any knowledge without being obliged 
 to give any thought to the process, cannot impart that knowl- 
 edge so well as one who has followed the steps, is always a 
 great drawback to the effective teaching of a language by those 
 to whom it is the mother-tongue. This drawback can be 
 overcome only by long practice in actual teaching ; and during 
 the process the pupils must inevitably suffer. It is these 
 difficulties of adjustment which have brought about, through 
 the extensive employment of foreigners to teach their languages 
 in our schools, the unsatisfactory conditions as to the pace of 
 work to which I referred last year, and it is largely the in- 
 crease in the employment of those who are Americans by 
 education at least, which is leading to an improvement in this 
 respect. The matter is after all a question of individuals, and 
 a good deal might be said on the text that a man who is good 
 for anything is likely to find employment at home, and so the 
 men we are likely to get to teach in our schools are of a better 
 grade if they are of home production. 
 
 It seems on the whole then to be a reasonable demand that 
 our modern language teachers shall have received their gen- 
 
9 
 
 eral education in our country, or at least enough of it to be 
 thoroughly in touch with our institutions and with the spirit 
 of our students, and to have an unhampered use of the English 
 language. 
 
 For an American to acquire a thorough practical knowl- 
 edge of a foreign language, only one course is adequate, lie 
 must live a considerable time in the country where it is spoken. 
 There is no possible substitute which will accomplish this 
 object. Any attempt to create a French or German atmo- 
 sphere in this country is pretty sure to be a failure. Take 
 into consideration only the relatively unimportant matter of 
 pronunciation ; however perfect a pronunciation a foreigner 
 may bring to this country, a very few years’ residence here 
 will almost invariably give it an English shading, which 
 becomes stronger the more he speaks English, and the more 
 he uses his own language among those who speak it with an 
 English accent.* In a circle made up of these two classes of 
 people, it is perfectly possible for an American to acquire a 
 startling fluency in a sort of French “ after the scole of Strat- 
 ford-atte-Bowe,” which no Frenchman can understand unless 
 (like most Paris shopkeepers) he knows English pretty well, 
 and which years of residence in Paris will never correct. The 
 phonetic facts of the pronunciation of a foreign language 
 are never thoroughly understood until one has lived among 
 those who speak that language and no other. The same 
 relation of things holds in regard to the use of words and 
 idioms; differences in social life, differences in the material 
 conditions of things, which cause words to connote other 
 ideas than the words used to render them, cannot be thorough- 
 ly felt, and a teacher cannot be sure of his ground in dealing 
 with them till he has lived among both sets of the conditions 
 which determine these differences. No man is master of a 
 language until he can think in it, and no one really thinks in a 
 language unless he has lived a fair length of time where it is 
 the recognized medium of thought. 
 
 * A case in point is that of two ladies, both college graduates, who “spoke French 
 very well.” They went to hear a lecture by M. Coquelin, when he was in this country. 
 As they came out, one was heard to say “ How much of it could you understand ? ” 
 
 “ Isn’t it funny,” said the other, “ I can understand Professor ’s lectures on French 
 
 Literature perfectly , but I didn’t understand a single thing to-day.” 
 
10 
 
 On higher ground, too, this matter is important. The 
 modern language teacher is just now, in this country, almost 
 above other members of his profession, the apostle of toler- 
 ance and the foe of narrowness in all its shapes, — religious, 
 political and social. I need only to touch this point to remind 
 any one who has lived abroad of the inevitable logic of 
 circumstances which brings this about. Take the most proper 
 boarding-school mistress, and the most argument-proof teacher 
 from a sectarian Western college, who have acquired their 
 French and German from the most carefully expurgated 
 editions, and taught accordingly — let them go abroad and 
 have every means to follow out the nearest desire of their 
 hearts ; let her spend her whole time in Paris and divide it 
 between her American friends and the shops, seeing as little of 
 those horrid Frenchmen as possible, and come home with twelve 
 trunks full of gowns, and let him spend his in a carefully 
 selected German-American pension in a university town, 
 divide it between his landlady’s daughters and the lecture- 
 rooms, and come home with a long beard and a Ph.D. — and 
 yet both of them, in spite of themselves, even if they still 
 uphold their early principles that the theatre is on the straight 
 road to perdition, and that beer is a deadly poison, will have 
 acquired a new and a broader view of human life, and their 
 pupils will get good from the change. And if you send over a 
 young man of good parts, with an honest purpose to see all 
 the sides of life he can, and sufficient culture already in stock 
 to interpret what he sees, he will come home with convictions 
 which make him for the rest of his life, at least a silent force 
 opposed to sectarian intolerance, u spread-eagle ” politics, and 
 Philistinism in every form. 
 
 It seems to me that this matter of residence abroad is as 
 important for us as is laboratory work for a chemist, or dis- 
 section for a physician. There is no valid reason why it 
 should not be considered a part of the preparation in the 
 teacher’s case as essential as the practical work in the other 
 cases, and insisted on as such by those who employ teachers. 
 
 I have already hinted at the fact that living in a country 
 and studying practically the language and life of the people is 
 
11 
 
 by no means the same thing as living there and devoting one’s 
 self to scientific study. In fact the two things are more or 
 less antagonistic. The more a person sees of the various sides 
 of life in a foreign country the less time he has in which to shut 
 himself up with his books, and vice versa. The conscientious 
 American student is rather prone to make the mistake of giv- 
 ing relatively too much time to his books, and thereby missing 
 the stimulus of intellectual fellowship, which is so great an 
 element in European universities, but which our students can- 
 not avail themselves of unless they reduce the book study for 
 the first semester to a minimum, and devote themselves to 
 getting en rapport with the social side of life and the 
 language as a practical matter. After a student has done 
 this, and not till then, he is ready to say whether it is better 
 for him to make his special studies abroad or at home. In 
 most cases it will be found that it makes surprisingly little 
 difference. There are on both sides of the water competent 
 professors and ample libraries;* the work to be done by the 
 student is largely the same wherever he is, and it is generally 
 a question chiefly of individual instruction and the accessibility 
 of material. In general, the Germans excel in thoroughness, 
 and the Americans in economy of work. The student learns 
 in Germany to shrink from no amount of work that is necces- 
 sary to get to the bottom of a matter, and learns in America 
 to eliminate intelligently that which is unnecessary. Both 
 habits are valuable, and study in both countries is valuable for 
 the purpose of forming both habits. An American, however, 
 who goes to Germany without sufficient maturity and indi- 
 viduality to steer his own course, is very liable to fall under 
 the influence of German methods of work to such an extent 
 as to put him under a disadvantage when he comes back to 
 work under American conditions. 
 
 A thorough and safe course would be somewhat as follows : 
 Let a student, having given due attention to the modern 
 languages as an undergraduate, go to Berlin or Paris and 
 
 * As things are now organized in Europe, there are better opportunities there for 
 students of the Germanic than of the Romance languages, and it is therefore entirely 
 natural that more graduate students are found at American universities in the latter 
 subject than in the former. 
 
12 
 
 spend a year, as much as possible among the people and away 
 from other Americans, reading newspapers more than text- 
 books, but hearing lectures and cultivating the society of the 
 native students, and learning how things are done at the 
 university. Then let him come home and take a thorough 
 course in his subject at a good American university for a year 
 or two, and finally go back and prepare his thesis under a 
 German professor, or do some original work of a scholarly 
 kind, and at the same time put the final touches on his practi- 
 cal knowledge of the language he is to teach. 
 
 Such a course would cover the essential points which I 
 have emphasized, as far as any course of study can do it. Of 
 course, after all, teachers are born and not made, and the 
 talent for imparting knowledge must be assumed at the out- 
 set. There is no way to prove its possession except a record 
 of successful teaching. A bachelor’s degree from a reputable 
 American institution is some guarantee of a proper amount of 
 general culture, and of an adequate knowledge of English, 
 while such a course of foreign study as I have indicated 
 answers for a scientific and practical knowledge of the 
 language to be taught. 
 
 It seems to me that the time has now come when those 
 who employ modern language teachers may insist upon the 
 thoroughness of preparation which I have outlined, and on 
 the other hand that teachers may insist upon such compen- 
 sation as makes it worth while to attain such preparation.