Publisher's Synopsis
The first of these two lectures, delivered in Cambridge at the request of the Teachers' Training Syndicate, was pretty fully reported in tho April number of the Journal. The second one, which deals almost entirely with details of practical teaching, would not admit of condensation, and we are glad to have the two lectures in a permanent form.
The first lecture defines the scope and limits of Modern Language Teaching in Public Schools. This subject has been fully canvassed in our pages, and Mr. Colbeck's conclusions agree so closely with our own that we need not travel over the ground again. We may endorse, in passing, Mr. Colbeck's protest against the present constitution of the Mediaeval and Modern Language Tripos-curiously enough, Mr. Colbeck does not seem aware that it actually has this dual name. Undoubtedly, the combination has so far resulted in the swamping of Literature by Philology, and has not given us the Tripos that masters of Modern Sides desiderated. We may also note the vigorous assault on Dr. Jowett's thesis that language lies about us in our infancy. Few parents can afford the luxury of bonnes and French governesses, and those who can would, in our opinion, spend their money better in engaging the services of a competent Kindergartnerin, who would train the child's powers of observation, which are developed as early as the powers of memory. The Russian polyglot child is not a type that we should care to emulate.
The second lecture might be entitled Leaves from the Note-book of a Modern Language Master, and we might dismiss it with the simple advice to all modern language masters, to buy it. The general principle of reducing the grammar to a minimum is admirably carried out, and the hints for its simplification most useful. On a few points ol detail we venture to differ from Mr. Colbeck, and these we will state as they occur in the lecture. (1) In the paragraphs on pronunciation, no hint is given of the importance of some knowledge of the vocal mechanism. Unless you show a boy the position of tongue and lips, you will find to the end of the chapter "no discrimination of -ez, -er, -e, -ais, -ai, -ait" (Mr. Colbeck cannot mean that there are here more than two sounds). (2) In the theory of the German declension of substantives, "genders" should surely precede "declensions." The gender known, it is comparatively easy to decline; the gender unknown, all schemes of declension are useless. (3) For French genders Mr. Colbeck's rule, "-ie, -ion, -con, -son are feminine, and other consonant endings are mostly masculine," is a meagre pittance. In nine cases out of ten, the French gender is easily deduced from the Latin, and it is astonishing how far a very slender knowledge of Latin will serve. (4) Mr. Colbeck would stereotype the ancient rules for the formation of French tenses, which are on a par with Wordsworth's obsolete rules for Greek tenses; and, worse than this, he defends the irrational terms, "conjunctive and disjunctive pronouns," which have been abandoned by nearly all French and German grammarians. To the hints on composition, and the model specimens, we can award unqualified praise.
-The Journal of Education, Vol. 9
