as now constituted could be so reorganized as to bring about "the elimination of a large amount of subject matter that might well be eliminated" (to quote from one of our leading superintendents) without interfering in the least with the three fundamental subjects taught in these grades: the three R's, that is to say, the ability to read, write, and cipher-and spell; and these eliminations would be sufficient (in the judgment of the aforesaid superintendent and others) to save a year of time, which, added to the year saved in seventh and eighth grades, makes the two years of total saving previously mentioned as being claimed by the more moderate critics of the present system.

Furthermore, we should not forget that this six years' elementary school course has been formally recommended by such bodies as the National Education Association and the New York City High School Principals' Association, among others.

But the two years that the foregoing authorities have thus demonstrated as being capable of release are assailed on all sides: by the grade school authorities in the manner indicated above, where additional material (not wholly suited to the pupils' real needs and taught by grade school teachers who have not especially prepared therein) is injected into the upper grades; and by the high school administrators who try to push down into those two years some of the subjects in their own congested programs, even though in many cases the very nature of those subjects makes them more suited to the last two years of the high school. We urge upon school authorities (when they reorganize their systems so as to introduce the junior high school, extending from the seventh to the ninth grades, inclusive) that they watch carefully what subjects are admitted to the junior high school course, and especially to the seventh and eighth grades. The unanimous verdict of Continental and British educators is to the effect that for these years language study. (native and foreign) should predominate very largely, the proportions running from two-thirds to five-sixths.

As a result of a variety of causes, Spanish has of late assumed an importance undreamed of a few years back. We have awakened as never before to a realization of how much we need to know and understand our southern neighbors of Hispanic origin. This can be accomplished only by having all our citizens, and especially the rising generation, learn Spanish at the earliest possible moment.

With this international need and opportunity in mind, and keeping before us also the fact that by and large the country has already well-established courses in other languages to suit more or less the needs of the present four-year high school, we should disrupt the system less (when making the proposed reorganization) if we recommend that in junior high school the foreign language undertaken be Spanish, from the first day, with daily recitations, and that the rest of the curriculum consist in the main of two daily recitations in English subjects and one in mathematics; and that these subjects be continued throughout the entire three years of the

course.

The present writer would like to recommend very earnestly that wherever it be possible the entire curriculum in the junior high school be conducted on the supervised-study (double-period) plan. It is fundamental with this grade of teaching that the pupil be kept for as large a portion as possible of each day in the most active relationship possible with the teacher; and in no subjects is this relationship more vital than in the habit-forming subjects (native and foreign languages), where the pupil learns from example almost as much as he learns from precept.

Another problem that confronts the administrator who wishes to establish a junior high school has to do with the choice of teachers for the reorganized seventh and eighth years. In some cases the experiment has been tried by having grade school teachers handle the new subjects in the reorganized seventh and eighth grades. Of the experiments of this type that have been brought to our attention all but one have been failures, and the one case that succeeded was worked out under such exceptional conditions that it really ought not to be counted at all in the reckoning. In other cases, the experiment has been tried by incorporating the seventh and eighth grades in the high school system and demanding of the teachers who handle those classes the same standards of training and attainment that are regularly demanded for the four-year high school teacher. There may have been an occasional failure when the experiment was tried in this manner, but no cases of such failure have come to our attention. We therefore urge that, in all cases where junior high schools are to be organized, the authorities demand of the would-be teacher in those grades the same standards of training and attainment that are demanded of the regular high school teachers.

The present stampede against foreign language instruction as represented by bills that are now being considered by various state. legislatures (among others by those of Michigan, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Nebraska) is not only unwholesome but positively dangerous to the best interests of the country. It is earnestly to be hoped that the legislators in question will not allow themselves to be swept off their feet by a short-sighted policy put forward in the name of patriotism, and that on the contrary they will take advice from persons who are not only patriotic but also competent to give authoritative expert advice as to the merits of the question. The state of mind of those who are fomenting the present movement contrasts sharply with the sanity of the members of the British Commission who for two years studied carefully all the problems involved in the instruction of modern foreign languages and who recently presented the results of their deliberations in a notable report which cannot be too highly recommended to the executives and legislators who are back of the pending bills.

No one believes more strongly than does the present writer that no language but English should be taught or used in the first six years of the grade schools as now constituted. But the seventh and eighth grades, which at present are generally included in the grade school group, should not be included in the years to which this taboo is applied. For, as this paper has tried to show, the seventh and eighth grades properly belong in the high school group and the unanimous evidence of foreign schools, both European and South American, is to the effect that language study, both native and foreign, is what should form the predominant part of the instruction of the secondary school system, which will thus comprise grades seven to twelve inclusive. France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Holland, and most of the South American countries realized long before the war the necessity of giving ample modern foreign language instruction in their secondary school systems, and England, as shown by the afore-mentioned report, has at last awakened to the real necessities of the case. It will be suicidal for us to adopt, to any extent whatever, the narrow policy represented by the bills to which reference has been made; for under that system it would. be utterly impossible for the rising generation to acquire what President Butler of Columbia University has styled the international mind; and the deleterious effects of that policy would be felt in com

merce, in banking, in education, in diplomacy, and in the higher cultural relations between ourselves and the other nations with whom in this day and generation we must associate.

To summarize, therefore, the present writer recommends that as rapidly as possible the present eight-year-grade schools be so reorganized as to accomplish all that is essential therein in six years: that the two years thus bodily saved be turned into the high school system, constituting (with the first year of the present high schools) the junior high schools; that the program of studies devised for these three years be predominantly linguistic (native and foreign) and that Spanish be undertaken in the first year of the junior high school as the first foreign language, and that it be continued throughout the junior and senior high schools; that other foreign languages be introduced one after another as speedily as possible in both the junior and senior high schools, and that each language, once begun, be continued to the end of the senior high school; that all teaching in the junior high school be done on the supervisedstudy (double-period) plan; and that the teachers assigned to these junior high school classes be held to the same standards of training and attainment that are now demanded of the regular high school teachers.

JOHN D. FITZ-GERALD

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF THE
PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE

The word "importance" is used here entirely in relation to commercial, diplomatic and other international transactions.

The Portuguese language is used chiefly in Portugal and in Brazil. It is also used in certain islands of the Atlantic, such as the Azores and Madeira islands, and in the Portuguese colonies of South Africa and Asia. The total number of people speaking it is estimated at more than twenty millions. Of these about five and a half millions live in Portugal, and about fifteen millions live in Brazil. Brazil was originally a Portuguese colony and the language of that country is, and always has been Portuguese. What is here said refers almost exclusively to the importance of the Portuguese language in connection with the commercial and other relations between Brazil and the United States.

Of late years much has been said of the importance of our trade with Central and South America, and there has been much talk of a general awakening to the necessity of getting in touch with the people of those countries, of cultivating friendly relations with them, and of meeting the general requirements of a stable international commerce. Ideas about how we are to get in touch with them seem to be rather hazy on the whole, but it is pretty generally recognized by those whose judgment is worth most that the establishment of business relations with those countries calls for a knowledge of their languages.

Unfortunately, most of our people have the erroneous idea that the language of all South America is Spanish; and if perchance some of us have heard that Portuguese is the language of one of those countries, we seem disposed to think that any country of that continent using any other language than Spanish is negligible, or, on a pinch, that Spanish will do just as well, or that there must be some way to do business without bothering about the language. In other words, the matter of the language in connection with our efforts to do business with South America has not been given the attention to which it is entitled.

So long as no serious thought is given to either the commerce,