New Britain herald., 1918-10-05
TEACHING GERMAN.


 in it's opinion that i ,ould be foolish to abolish the teach lg of the German language in oul chools The reasons set forth here I are sufficient, we think, to convince he sober-minded that German should e retained in the schools-not as anguage for conversation or for th' of knowledge, but solely a language to be studied in thu chool.
 The Republican says:
 Connecticut with it's colleges and secondary schools famed throughout the nation, would make a sad exhibition of itself if it barred German absolutely be- cause of war prejudices. What we need is to bar the teaching of German ideas when we know those ideas to be evil. German has been taught in our colleges, High schools and private schools that have prepared students for college for a number of genera tions and we do not find that the Americans who have pursued such studies have been contam- mated. This is because they have used Goethe, Leasing, Heine, Schiller and men of their char acter rather than Nietzsche and Bernhardi as text books.
 
 and of their language is needed now more than ever before In the past 50 years writers like Bernhardi and Nietzsche have been holding before the German people the terrible ideals that have so cruelty been put into practice during this war. Before the war we were asleep to the terrible significance of such teach ing. We read but we did not be- lieve. Are we to allow ourself for all future time to be caught mapping, not because we do not believe what our eyes see, but because we cannot understand the language in which the Bern hardis and Nietzsches write? The inner life of Germany must not be hidden from the world hereafter. We must know all we can about it, that we may see the dangers, if dangers again begin to surge up in wave on wave of evil thought until the flood of war pOurs over the world.
 The view of German language suppression advocated by the De- fense society is narrow. To adopt it would be as unwise as 1t would be for the army to refuse to take a man who had learned German. The soldier of our army who knows German has been proving himself of great value as listener in on German trench telephone wires, as a translator of captured papers and as an in- terpreter when enemy soldiers have been captured. It isn't the German language that is con- talminated; it is the German mind and soul that have gone bad.
 Again, there is the question of eco 1omic necessity. The Mancheste (England) Guardian contains the fo owing excerpt from the report of tn committee appointed by the Prim Minister to inquire into the positio of modern languages in the educa Lional system of Great Britain:
 It will in any case be impossi- ble to oust the use of German in commerce even for our own pur- poses at home, apart from any question of competition in neu- tral countries. If we are not our selves able to supply men who have sufficient knowledge of Ger man to conduct the necessary correspondence, strong incentive will be offered to revert to the old practice of employing Ger man clerks for the purpose. This is only one of the many con- alterations which lead us to the conclusion that it is of essen tial importance to the nation that the study of the German language should be not only maintained but extended
 England would have more reaso for doing away with German than W have, and so long as she is conten to permit the teaching of the la1 guage, why should we become narrow as to do away with it?
 An applicant for naturalization a neighboring state, when asked "Who was the first presindent?" al