s in French; and only
eighteen, or 36 per cent, allowed students to begin French in the
freshman year, over one half of the entire number postponing the
beginners' French until the sophomore, junior, or even senior year. It
is clear, therefore, that as late as 1864, and in spite of such
illustrious examples as that set by Harvard in the appointment of
Ticknor to the Smith professorship in 1816, the Romance languages
could hardly be classed as a recognized college subject. At best, they
were taught on the principles that "it is never too late to learn,"
and although this teaching failed from the "practical" point of view,
it yet had little or no opportunity to concern itself with the
cultural aspects of the subject. No wonder the commission
reported[87] that in the circumstances "a mastery of language, as well
as a comprehensive study of the literature, is impossible." With the
part played by our Greek and Latin colleagues in keeping the modern
languages out of the curriculum we need not deal in detail here. It is
enough, in order to explain their attitude, to observe that previous
to 1884 the teaching of modern languages was generally poor: it was
intrusted for the most part to foreigners, who, being usually ignorant
of the finer shades of English and woefully ignorant of American
students, could not have been expected to succeed, or to native
Americans, who for various and often excellent reasons lacked the
proper training, and therefore succeeded--when in rare cases they did
succeed--in spite of their qualifications rather than because of them.
Add to all this the conviction natural to every classicist, that Latin
and Greek are the keys to all Western civilization and that without
them Romance literatures (not to say "languages") are incomprehensible,
and the situation up to the 90's is amply clear.

=Contemporary status of Romance Languages in college curricula=

Today, then, conditions are changed, and for better or worse the
Romance tongues are on a par with other collegiate subjects. A glance
at the latest statistics is instructive. In 1910, out of 340 colleges
and universities in the United States, 328 taught French; 112 (the
universities) offered more than four years' instruction, 50 offered
four years, 90 three years, 68 two years, and only 8 one year. The
present status can easily be divined: the interest in Spanish has
certainly not waned, while the interest in French has grown by leaps
and bounds. Some cur