more, calls up more, than does the unimaginative phrase "the leaves of the corn." In case he does not see, the teacher should point out and make plain the difference. In doing so he is merely conducting the laboratory work of rhetoric.

Again, instead of a model, give a scene, an incident, a short narrative. Let the student reproduce. At first the chances are something like nineteen to one that if he attempts the scene it will be without color, will give no evidence of imagination, will be woefully matter of fact. If a narrative, it will be full of useless details, will give very little evidence of selection. But patience will effect wonders, and the results at the end of a year will often make you change your mind about your life work.

A third variation is to give a leading sentence and on that as a foundation have the student build up the theme. Sometimes the teacher may suggest how to build; sometimes he may leave every student to follow his own devices. Here are two brief selections from themes of a high school student of the preparatory department of Notre Dame which will illustrate the purpose of this method. This first selection was written last October with the following sentence for a beginning:

"It is quiet here on the river bank and the lips of the river are humming a dreamy song." Here is how this student develops:

"I look across the stream that flows past me. The stream winds in and out and seems to sing to me. The song has a soothing melody which says: 'Be happy with the happy and be sorrowful with the sorrowful.' Yes, this is the way to make life a happy life. We should sympathize with others when sadness is upon them and we should be joyful with them when they are joyful. Yes, this was my dream on the river bank and though many do not believe in dreams I believe in this one for it taught me a useful lesson, and we should all learn useful lessons."

Last May this high school boy developed the same opening sentence in this way:

"It is the song of summer, the song of life. Here the heart is at rest in the quiet shade and memory goes back and begins to dream. Faces that I have seen are reflected in the stream

and voices mingle with the low voices of the running waters. The faces smile and the voices speak tender words that make my heart glad."

In the first selection we have all the ear-marks of immaturity. First of all, this young hopeful sails out from his moorings and tells us how to make life happy, moralizes about sympathizing with others, admonishes us to rejoice with them in their joy; then draws the perfectly moral conclusion that we should all "learn useful lessons". "Yes, this is the way to make life a happy life," he assures us, but if he had read this sentence over and struck out one life he would still have enough life left. He forgets that he began in the present tense, and for no reason glides back to the past. "It taught me a useful lesson, and we should all learn useful lessons" is a typical example of two illmated clauses connected by and.

The second selection is not remarkable in any way except in so far as it gives evidence of order in the mind of the writer. We have no homily on how to love and sympathize with our neighbor and we are not admonished to learn useful lessons. There are no word repetitions that give the effect of weakness; also the writer shows a disposition to stick to the point.

I have attempted to set down some of the difficulties teachers of English meet with; I have suggested one or two methods for developing the literary sense which I have found helpful in my work with high school boys. But after all, there are no hard. and fast rules to teach a boy how to write. In the classics, in mathematics, in the sciences, in history, it is different. For the most part there is a straight road in these branches and if the young student has a certain ability and works, he will advance. In the teaching of high school English, yes, and even college English, the teacher may follow the text-book and get students to memorize figures of speech and the laws of composition. But figures of speech existed before rhetoric, and literature antedates its laws. The teacher must handle the skeleton and the dead flesh of rule and maxim to be sure. But more important by far is to quicken interest, to awaken sympathy, to create love, in a word, to give bone and flesh the force of his personality, the breath of life.

THE MODERN LANGUAGE COURSE AND THE

CHOICE OF SUITABLE TEXTS

REV. ALBERT MUNTSCH, S. J., ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY, ST. LOUIS, MO.

Educational discussions during the third quarter of the nineteenth century centered chiefly on the subjects which until then had furnished the basis of the cultural or college course — the classics, science and mathematics. With the enlargement of the college curriculum during the last quarter of the century, and with the greater choice of subjects set before the college student during the same time-history, political economy and the molern languages and literatures the field of educational discussion was at once widened. For no sooner had these subjects gained admission into the college course, than they were challenged to make good their claim to be treated with the same consideration as the time-honored college branches the classics, physical science, represented chiefly by physics and chemistry, and mathematics. This was true in the case of the new natural sciences that clamored for admission - biology and botany, it was true of civics, it was so in the case of the modern languages French and German.

In the short time at my disposal it is not my purpose to review the controversy that has long been waged especially between teachers of classic and modern languages as to the merits of their respective subjects on the program of cultural and collegiate studies. Taking it for granted that the modern languages now have, and should have, at least the position of electives in every well planned system of college studies, I inten merely to offer some suggestions which may prove useful to those engaged in modern language teaching in our Catholic high schools and colleges.

The teacher of any subject in the college curriculum naturally takes a just pride in that subject and perhaps believes that it is

as important and efficient as any other in disciplinary and cultural values. Certainly the teacher of modern languages, French and German, or even Spanish and Italian, need offer no apology for being enthusiastic in his field and for trying to arouse corresponding interest in those under his charge. It is after all mainly in their languages and literatures that the culture and civilization of these great nations are contained, and by them they will be preserved for future generations. The Catholic language teacher has behind him the history and tradition of these nations, all of which have wrought splendid achievements in art and literature under the patronage and the tutelage of the Church, of which they have been loyal children.

Our language teachers need recall this fact all the more because the services of the Church in the development of modern language and literature are quite often overlooked, or even belittled by those who until now had almost preempted the work of preparing texts for our language classes. I was surprised to see that even so excellent an English philologist as Professor A. S. Cook of Yale, in his booklet The Higher Study of English, makes bold to say that the Church discourages the study of modern languages.* It is true his words apply only to the study of English but the professor would no doubt be ready to repeat the charge with regard to the Church's attitude towards the other modern tongues. As to the attempted proof of his statement-namely, that few Catholic scholars have thus far engaged in the editing or expounding of Old English and mediaeval English literature-this fact admits of ready explanation. It may be sought chiefly in the disability under which English Catholics so long labored and which debarred them. from the English seats of learning, or at least did not permit them to use their advantages to the same extent as did their brethren separated from Rome. The professor's acquaintance with the works being issued by the E. E. T. S. should have convinced him that a very large portion of what still remains of Old English

"Being thus democratic in origin, it is but natural that the systematic study and teaching of English had to contend with the indifference or opposition of the Roman Church, the aristocracy, and the supporters of the ancient classics." II. The Teaching of English-p. 40.

literature owes its inspiration entirely to Catholic ideals—a fact which he grudgingly admits in the essay already alluded to as far as concerns "a great body of mediaeval English literature,” which, he says, "is monastic or ecclesiastical in character." But even the literature of preceding epochs is to a great extent of this character. For what about Alfred and Aelfric, and Caedmon and Bede, to whom we owe practically all that remains of early Saxon prose and poetry? What does that charming tale so often repeated in our handbooks of English literature, about the marvellous manner in which Caedmon received the gift of song, teach us if not the fact that the Church encouraged even secular song and profane literature in the vernacular? Does not the Anglo-Saxon version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History which first tells this touching story, begin with the words: "In theosse abbudissan mynstre waes sum brodor syndriglice mid godcundre gife gemaered"-and was not the nun Hilda the foundress and first abbess of this monastery at Whitby, to which Bede refers, and is it not supposed that Caedmon died as early as the year 680? Verily there is a Catholic spirit in the early monuments of English speech.

And if there be question of the chief Romance languagesFrench, Spanish and Italian-we may ask: Where did the troubadours of Provence find encouragement in mediaeval days? Was it not at the court of Christian kings and nobles? And where, and under what auspices, did Dante write his Divina Comedia? Was it not in cultured Catholic Florence and under the shadow of those mighty mediaeval cathedrals which embodied so much of the genial Catholic spirit of those happy days of faith and of chivalry?

And to turn to German song, what people was it that sang the Volkslied, the songs and ballads, which are still loved and admired to-day, which are an inspiration to our poets and composers, and which, alas! must also furnish the subject for so many dry-as-dust, and just as interesting, doctor-dissertations at some American universities? Was it not the people of happy Catholic Germany before the days of religious upheaval? A reference to Janssen's monumental Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes-especially those chapters in which he treats the cultural