Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1917-07-13
CHARLES d. CRANE,
Editor and Business Manager
Terms strletly In Advance
ACHTUNG 1!


Forty students Of German arrived in
Middlebury this week, on the heels of
over a hundred students of French and
Spanish, giving to the streets of Mid
dlebury something of cosmopolitan
air, for among the instructors are sew
eral natives of France, Germany and
Spain, and the students themselves feel
so much enthusiasm for their foreign
language studies that the foreign
tongues are used in their conversation
on the streets,
Never before in the history Of the
Summer Schools here have the foreign
instructors and their followers come to-
gether under such circumstances as re-
suit from the fact that the United
States is at war with Germany 1t is
fortunate that the German school is
under such able leadership as that OF
Fraulein Stroebe Of Heidelburg, as
sociate professor Of German at Vassar
College,
In the first general assembly Of the
German school she wisely announced
that the discussion of the war would be
positively "Verboten" The usual rules
of the German school. which Fraulein
Stroebe has so successfully conducted
here every summer since 1913, will be
enforced, however, including the stipu-
lation that German and German eX-
clusively shall be spoken from break
fast to bedtime, day in and day out for
the six weeks duration of the school,
This may be classed as desirable dis
cipline for the mastery of a foreign
tongue.
According to the prospectus of the
school everything possible will be done
10 create true German atmosphere"
to facilitate instruction in the language,
and German books, periodicals. and
newspapers will be generally provided u,
Map studies of Germany have already
begun, and the course includes instruc
ton covering German institutions and
government.
The Register, wishing the success of
the school, will watch Fraulen Stroebe' s
efforts with peculiar interest. 1t will
find no fault with the creation of a
German atmosphere" so far as it is es-
sentia to the mastery of the German
language, which, together with some
other things German, we can separate
from the German government which we
so heartily despise.
The Register does protest that under
the present circumstances the introduce
ton of German newspapers presumably
some of those published in New York;
is not essential to the success of the
language teaching, The New Yorker
Statts-Zeitung or Herold are not models
of good German. They are at the
moment almost papers without a
country.
None of the current German litera-
ture should be used in the German
school. There is none Of it that has
been written since August 1914 that has
not been woven warp and wool around
the war, and around the German view
of it, all linked up with the divine right
of the Kaiser and the holiness of the
conflict which William Of Hohenzollern
plunged the world into by tlinging his
ultimatums broadcast three years ago,
at the cost Of millions of innocent lives
already, and to the probable cost of the
lives of many of our own boys before
the thing is settled
Map study, and the discussion of
German government and institutions
should likewise be pretty delicately
handled if Fraulein Stroebe and her
staff would avoid an eruption of
Americansm in the class room and in
these columns.
Welcome but beware