s reasoning were valid the French
might without detriment convey their "ideas" in Volapuek or Ido (I
suggest that Mr. Flexner subject Anatole France to this test); and
that instead of being valueless in themselves, on the contrary,
languages are the repositories of the ages: "We infer," said Emerson,
"the spirit of the nation in great measure from the language, which is
a sort of monument in which each forcible individual in the course of
many hundred years has contributed a stone." In other words, however
great the claim of Spanish as "a practical subject" may be and
whatever concessions our schools and colleges may make to this fact, I
still believe that Spanish should be subordinated as a college subject
to the study of French. In principle we may admit the Spanish "major,"
as in fact we do at present with the Italian "major"; but some
knowledge of French on the part of the student should be presupposed,
or if not, it should be a required part of the Spanish sequence. This
may seem extreme, but in reality few students would wish to proceed
far in Spanish without some French, and, practically, the knowledge of
one Romance tongue is always a great aid in the study of another.

=Training teachers of Romance Languages=

Thus we see that, with the addition here and there of an extra course
(where the college is not up to the standard as we have outlined it),
and an added stress on the advanced linguistics, the present
curriculum in Romance apparently provides an excellent working basis.
If properly carried out--and the success of all teaching depends of
course ultimately on the teacher--it ought to fulfill all legitimate
needs, so far as the strictly collegiate aims are concerned.

A word is now in order as to its fitness for those students who are
planning to take Romance as a profession. Normally these students
would coincide with those who are taking up "special honors" in
Romance languages; and for the latter group most of our colleges now
make special provision--in the form of "independent work done outside
the regular courses in the major subject and at least one other
department during the junior and senior year (Wisconsin)," or as
Amherst states it, "special work involving collateral reading or
investigation under special conditions." In general, this gives the
candidate certain professional options among the courses listed (in
cases where the college is part of the university) as "primarily for
graduates." In