an occasional English
_word_ is entirely harmless, but that English _sentences_ should as
much as possible be avoided in elementary work. Connected translation,
both from and into English, must absolutely be excluded from the first
year's work, for the chief purpose of this year is not only the study
of grammar and the development of an elementary vocabulary, but, even
more than that, the cultivation of the right _attitude_ toward
language study. Reading should be our chief aim, and speaking a means
to that end, but the student must be trained, from the very beginning,
to understand what he is reading rather through an intelligent grasp
of the contents than by fingering the dictionary. In this way he will
become accustomed to associating the German sentences _directly_ with
the thought expressed in them, instead of _indirectly_ through the
medium of his native tongue.

A great deal of misunderstanding is frequently involved in the
emphasis laid upon speaking. There can hardly be a more absurd
misinterpretation of the principles of the direct method than for
college teachers to try to "converse" with the students in German--to
have with them German chats about the weather, the games, the
political situation. This procedure is splendidly fit to develop in
the students a habit of guessing at random at what they hear and
read--a slovenly contentedness with an approximate understanding. Both
teacher and students should speak and hear German practically all the
time. But this should be distinctly in the service of reading and
grammar work, containing almost exclusively words and forms that the
student must _know_, not guess at.

At the end of the first year a college student ought to have mastered
the elements of grammar and possess good pronunciation and an active
vocabulary of about six hundred or eight hundred words. If the second
year is devoted to further drill on grammatical elements and to
careful reading, its result ought to be the ability to read authors of
average difficulty at a fair speed. During the first year all reading
material should be practiced so intensively that an average of a
little more than a page a week is not exceeded materially; but toward
the end of the second year a limit of six or eight pages an hour may
well be reached. By this time, translation into good English begins to
be a valuable factor in the achievement of conscious accuracy; but it
must under no circumstances be resorted to until t