The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1892-07-10

"'eiIniuteuit, inc!udtnR the irregular verbs.
finding, however. on presenting himself at
the Hamburg Academy. that he could not
follow the lectures OF professors. he DO
thought himself of tho need Of studying
the roots OF the language. and in four days
committed to memory thousand German
roots. Nevertheless. when he again entered
Tho lecture room, he perceived that his
roots availed him as little as his grammar.
Ihereupon he applied himself to the trans
lation OF GOETHE and SCHILLER, but again
his attempt to understand German when
spoken was Ruthless. Then he bought the
last edition OF 0LLENDORF and In four
weeks mastered it. yet he found himself as
much at u loss as over to speak German or
10 understand 1t through the eur. Finally
no determined to learn II dictionary by
heart. and In thirty days had committed to
memory vocabulary OF thirty thousand
words. Yet again the stores OF words ac-
cumuated merely as words through the
eye proved unavailable for conversation or
Tor the comprehension Of the discourses de-
livored In the lecture room.
AT last NJ. GouIN went homo in disgust
anu found that ono OF his ncphews. II child
three years old. who six months before had
been unable to talk. was now able to chat
ilucntly about all sorts Of things. He re-
solved to watch the child. while il was learn
Ing to express some new facts OF life. aud
from his observations he evolved tho prin-
ciples on which the natural process OF
learning languages is founded. These prn-
ciples ho would express in three fundamen-
tai propositions. First. children learn Ian.
guages not by words but by sentences:
secondly. II we are to learn languages in
series OF sentences instead Of in disconnect-
Ell words. 1t is on the verb and not on tho
substantive that attention must be conccn-
trated; thirdly, in order to remember u
series OF sentences, a child always pictures
the actions In consecutive order correspond
Ing to their natural succession in time.
having arrived at these conclusions NJ.
GoUIN went back to Germany. arranged at
Berlin to board and lodge in German fam
lily. and prevailed OH them to place their
young children under his charge. Tho
children taught him German and he taught
them French. not through books. but by de-
scrbins to each other the things they saw.
He found that oral descriptions of objects
seen. having once entered by way of the ear.
were engraved upon tho memory and never
aftcrward became eilaccd. At the end OF a
week he discovered that he could compre-
bend ordinary conversation: his tongue ut
the same time was loosrned. and like
child he began spontaneously to speak. Like
child. too. he applied the grammar intui-
lively, and his speeches ut once lost tho
property OF making everybody laugh. Two
weeks later he not only understood the
professors lectures with the utmost ease.
but in philosophical bout at the Berlin
University was proclaimed victor.
To the query whether the immense
amount OF work which he had previously
done in tho academical methods was not of
considerable assistance. VI. GUUIN. as we
have said. gives II negative reply. He in
sists that, on the contrary. the anterior
work hindered him, for two reasons: First.
because it had completely falsliied his pro-
nunciation, and secondly. because there
was not Il single verb in the whole German
language to which he did not attribute a
meaning quite other than its true one SO
that he had double task to execute: first
to forget. aftcrward to reearn: and the lat
tor was by no means the more difficult and
troublesome. The proof was that the chill
dren in onjuncti0n with whom his expert
ment was made learned to speak French
more easily and quickly than he learned
German, although they knew nothing OF
grammar or dictionary. So convinced. in
decd is ". GoUIN OF the Importance OF be-
ginning with the ear that he would prohibit
u student from seeing foreign word be-
fore he has Heard it aud has mastered both
its significance and its pronunciation
To acquire language perfectly with the
ear one needs, according to II. GoUIN. only
nine hundred hours. In three hundred
lessons OF three hours each. one can acquire
not only ten thousand words. but these
words compounded into one hundred thou
sand sentences With these one will have
not only the whole language. bat
much science and history besides. Tho or
binary man. however. does not want to
master whole language. To know enough
French TO feel ut home in France: to be able
to 80 about in it without ever being Mt a
loss to understand what is said IN the
streets. or IL the cafe or on the railway: to
read French newspaper with ease and to
speak with French accent; all this. it is
av"rred, can b. gained through the ear in
six months lpssops ~ yp hnurc