merous societies. This city is the chief center of the export and import trade between Spanish lands and the United States, and the Spanish-American business houses are very numerous. Able teachers of Spanish may find many opportunities to teach that language in evening schools, especially in the evening high schools conducted by the Board of Education, in which schools, as well as in the day high schools, there has been marked lack of Spanish teachers during the past four years. The salary for service in these schools is five dollars per evening of two hours, and there are 120 sessions per year.

500 PARK AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY

THE BOARD OF EXAMINERS

MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA: REPORT ON
SYLLABUS FOR SPANISH

Presented December 27, 1917

The committee appointed to revise the proposed course in Spanish (originally recommended in 1910) begs leave to present the following statement, covering a four years' course in secondary schools or a two years' course in college. The elementary course corresponds to the first two years in secondary schools or to the first year in college; and the intermediate and advanced courses correspond to a third and a fourth year respectively in secondary schools or to a second year in college. It is assumed that in secondary schools there will be four or five recitations a week, for at least thirty-two weeks of each year.

In view of the fact that, in our Western Hemisphere, Spanish is the language of millions of men with whom we have many interests in common, it is urged that teachers call the attention of students to the more striking variations of pronunciation from standard Castilian which are in use in Spanish-America, that some of the textbooks be by Spanish-American authors, and that the textbooks embrace works dealing with the geography, history, and customs of Spanish-America as well as of Spain. Moreover, practical considerations arising in connection with the study of Spanish in this country suggest a certain amount of attention to the training of students in commercial correspondence and usages; teachers are advised to pay regard to such considerations, avoiding, of course, undue specialization in the premises.

The desirable aims and methods of instruction in Spanish may be summarized as follows:

Elementary Course

The primary purposes of the elementary work are to teach (a) accurate pronunciation of Spanish (as spoken in both Spain and Spanish-America), (b) the understanding of spoken Spanish, (c) the translation of simple, idiomatic English phrases and sentences into their equivalent simple, idiomatic Spanish, (d) the expression in spoken Spanish of ideas about the usual experiences of life and also about the content of the texts used in the class. Some of the methods to be followed are: (1) reading aloud by both class and teacher, (2) dictation by the teacher, (3) memorization by the student of Spanish passages of conversational prose and of simple verse (fables, etc.), (4) translation, oral and written, of English into Spanish, with much use of English sentences based on a Spanish text, as well as of a composition-book, (5) questioning the class in Spanish about the material provided by the grammar, composition-book, reader or text, and requiring answers in Spanish. Readers or literary texts should not merely be translated into English; students should be trained to reproduce in Spanish the ideas which they have translated and others like them. All this is to be accompanied by constant drill in the rudiments of grammar and, especially, in the inflection of the verb.

Books: First half: A grammar; an elementary reader.

Second half: A grammar; a composition-book; simple texts (200 pages).

Advanced Course

The advanced work should be a continuation of the elementary work, with certain added features, such as (a) conversation and, in general, much expression in spoken Spanish of connected ideas and (b) the translation of connected English prose into Spanish. Some of the advisable methods are (1) the discussion in Spanish by the class of the content of the texts read or of the main facts of Spanish or Spanish-American geography, history, and customs, for the study of which the teacher will provide the material, (2) the preparation of résumés of Spanish material, which the students deliver in writing or give orally in the class-room, (3) the reproduction, orally or in writing, of Spanish anecdotes, jokes, or newspaper articles, told or read to the class by the teacher, (4) the

writing of themes and letters in Spanish about events of current or personal interest or about the books which are being studied in class, (5) the use of a composition-book. All this is to be accompanied by continued review of the grammatical rules with particular attention to the verb system and to salient facts of syntax. Books: First half: A grammar; a composition-book; intermediate texts (300-400 pages).

Second half: A grammar; a composition-book or, possibly, a manual of commercial correspondence; advanced texts (400-500 pages).

Repeating the reserves already established by the committee of fifteen for French and German (see Publications, vol. XXVI, no. 1, p. xiii), to the effect that the list is invested with no canonical authority and is intended to be merely suggestive of standards, this committee ventures to propose the following

Typical Texts

1st Year: A carefully graded reader for beginners; Juan Valera, El pájaro verde; Pérez Escrich, Fortuna; Altamirano, La navidad en las montañas.

2nd Year: A collection of short stories by different authors; a collection of brief comedies; a collection of easy lyrics (Spanish and Spanish-American) or of verse fables; a Spanish or Spanish-American historical reader; Alarcón, El Capitán l'eneno; Carrión and Aza, Zaragüeta; Frontaura, Las tiendas: Quintana, l'asco Núñez de Balboa; Jorge Isaacs, María: Palacio Valdés, José; Mármol, Amalia.

3rd Year: Taboada, Cuentos alegres; Isla's version of the Gil Blas ; Selgas, La mariposa blanca; Pérez Galdós, Doña Perfecta; Palacio Valdés, La Hermana San Sulpicio; a collection of essays dealing with Spanish or Spanish-American life and customs; Moratin, El sí de las niñas; Larra, Partir a tiempo; plays of the Alvarez Quintero brothers; plays of Benavente.

4th Year: Novels of Blasco Ibánez, Fernán Caballero, Pardo Bazán, Pereda, and Valera; Cervantes, Don Quijote (selections); plays of Benavente, Bretón de los Herreros, Echegaray, García Gutiérrez, Gil y Zárate, Gómez de Avellaneda, Hartzenbusch, López de Ayala, Martínez Sierra, Núñez de Arce, Pérez Galdós, Tamayo y Baus; an anthology of verse; Bécquer (selections).

The Committee also urges every secondary school in which Spanish is taught to have in its library several Spanish-English and English-Spanish dictionaries, the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, and such manuals of the history of Spanish and SpanishAmerican literature as those of Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Ticknor, and Coester.

Respectfully submitted,

J. D. M. FORD, Chairman

J. P. WICKERSHAM CRAWFORD
E. R. GREENE

R. H. KENISTON

F. B. LUQUIENS

COMMITTEES APPOINTED

President Wilkins has appointed the following committees which are to report at the next annual meeting:

COMMITTEE ON REALIA FOR A TWO YEARS' COURSE IN SPANISH: Chairman, Sr. J. Moreno-Lacalle, U. S. Naval Academy, Md.; Miss Ella A. Busch, High School of Commerce, New York City; Mrs. Mary F. Cox, High School, Los Angeles, Cal.; Miss M. C. Dowling, Mission High School, San Francisco, Cal.; Prof. Guillermo Hall, University of Texas, Austin, Texas; Prof. R. N. Gearheart, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, La.; Capt. Charles F. Harrington, Culver Military Academy, Culver, Ind.; Prof. A. S. Patterson, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N. Y.; Miss Marie A. Solano, Boston Normal School, Boston, Mass.; Dr. John Van Horne, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill.

COMMITTEE ON ADMISSIONS AND CORRELATION:

Chairman, Prof. Samuel M. Waxman, Boston University, Boston, Mass.; Miss Beulah Armacost, High School, Joliet, Ill.; Mr. J. J. Arnao, 150 Lincoln Ave., Newark, N. J.; Mr. Mark Bailey, Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Mich.; Miss Benicia Batione, Manual Training High School, Denver, Col.; Prof. J. F. Wickersham Crawford, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Prof. Frank G. Ewart, Colgate University, Hamilton, N. Y.; Prof. Ernest R. Greene, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. Y.; Mr. Wm. Hanssler, Yeatman, High School, St. Louis, Mo.; Mr. Charles Holzwarth, West High

School, Rochester, N. Y.; Mrs. Sarah N. Hatfield, Pasadena High School, Pasadena, Cal.; Mr. M. A. Luria, De Witt Clinton High School, New York City; Prof. Kenneth McKenzie, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill.; Mr. Clarence E. Parmenter, 234 Faculty Exchange, University of Chicago; Dr. Joseph S. Shefloe, Goucher College, Baltimore, Md.; Prof. Charles A. Turrell, University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz.; Prof. Caroline R. Ober, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash.; Mr. Leo Drew O'Neil, Cambridge, Mass., Box, 87, Cambridge, "A."

COMMITTEE TO SELECT HONORARY MEMBERS:

Chairman, Prof. John D. Fitz-Gerald, University of Illinois; Prof. Caroline B. Bourland, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.; Miss Elizabeth Casey, Wilmette High School, Wilmette, Ill.; Prof. J. D. M. Ford, Harvard University, Cambridge Mass.; Prof. Reginald R. Goodell, Simmons College, Boston, Mass.; Mr. Joel Hatheway, High School of Commerce, Boston, Mass.; Prof. W. S. Hendrix, University of Texas, Austin, Texas; Miss Josephine Holt, John Marshall High School, Richmond, Va.; Prof. C. Carroll Marden, Princeton University, Princeton, N. J.; Prof. Arthur L. Owen, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas; Prof. Roy Edwin Schulz, University of Southern California, Los Angeles; Dr. Homero Serís, University of Illinois, Urbana, Ill.; Mr. George W. N. Shield, Manual Arts High School, Los Angeles, Cal.; Mrs. Caroline Stephenson, Hotel Sutter, Sacramento, Cal., Mr. Cony Sturgis, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.; Mr. Carl C. Sundstrom, Lake View High School, Chicago, Ill.; Prof. George W. Umphrey, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash.; Miss May Vertrees, High School, Fullerton, Cal.; Prof. Charles P. Wagner, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.; Lawrence A. Wilkins, Board of Education, New York.