NOTES AND NEWS [University notes and news for publication in HISPANIA should be sent to Professor Charles P. Wagner, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and high school notes and news should be sent to Mr. Max A. Luria of De Witt Clinton High School, New York, or Miss May Vertrees, Fullerton High School and Junior College, Fullerton, California.] The many southern California friends of Miss Maria G. de López are proud to know that she has gone to France as an ambulancière. For years Miss López made her home in San Gabriel, the seat of the Mission Play. She was for some time one of the most popular and efficient teachers of Spanish in the Los Angeles City schools-leaving her work there to take up similar work in the Julia Richman High School of New York City. Oregon, one of the most remote states from the Spanish-speaking countries, is rapidly coming to the front in the study of Spanish. Within two or three years the whole movement to introduce Spanish into the schools has been started, until at present the majority of the larger cities and towns include this subject in their courses of study. The total number of Spanish students in the six high schools of Portland is 586. Spanish is taught to twice as many students as French and to three times as many as German, in some schools. Mr. Henry Ringlere, formerly of the faculty of the Lewis and Clark High School of Seattle, is now the instructor in Spanish in the Harvard Military Academy of Los Angeles. Great progress in Spanish is reported from Nevada. The Humboldt County High School at Lovelock has done some original work in mapping out the valley in which the school is located and turning the names into Spanish as far as possible. The High School of Commerce of Portland has as head of the Spanish department Mr. A. Rafael Vejar of South America. Mr. Vejar is the founder of the Spanish American Society of Oregon. His classes have established successful commercial correspondence with Spanish and South American students and are doing remarkable work. The Fullerton Union High School and Junior College of Fullerton, California, is very fortunately located at about equal distance between Los Angeles, San Gabriel, and San Juan Capistrano. The upper classes of the Spanish department make annual trips to the historic Plaza church of Los Angeles, to the famous Mission Play of John Steven McGroarty at San Gabriel, and to the mission at San Juan Capistrano. Mr. R. H. Gearhart, who was instructor in Spanish in Lincoln High School, Portland, is now assistant professor of modern languages in Louisiana State University. From Butte, Montana, comes the news that the enrollment in Spanish is nearly seven times as great as in 1915 when the work was started. Eight classes are now being taught there. Considering its distance from Spanishspeaking centers, the state of Montana as a whole shows a remarkable interest in Spanish. The Washington High School of Portland, Oregon, has a Spanish department of which any school might well be proud. We have received several copies of "Las Novedades," a very newsy sheet published by the students. The work of the Spanish club counts as recitation credit. Professor Cony Sturgis of Cornell University has just joined the Life Membership list. At the November meeting of the New York Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish, the following officers were elected: President. Dr. Guillermo Sherwell, New Utrecht H. S., Brooklyn, N. Y.; Vice-President, Mr. M. A. Luria, De Witt Clinton H. S., New York; Secretary-Treasurer, Miss Gracia Fernández, New Utrecht H. S.; Corresponding Secretary, Mr. Arturo Torres, De Witt Clinton H. S. The Chapter has been making a practice of inviting speakers to each of its meetings. Thoroughly gratified by the interest created last year through the offering of prizes, the Chapter is again conducting a contest for students of Spanish. There are two divisions, one for students who will have completed two years of Spanish, and another for students who have had more than two years of Spanish. Suitable prizes are being offered. The various high schools of the City of New York are supplementing their Spanish work by the publication of monthly Spanish newspapers. The following deserve very favorable mention: "La Voz," Bay Ridge High School, Brooklyn, N. Y.; "Blanco y Verde," New Utrecht High School, Brooklyn, N. Y.; "El Eco de las Españolitas," Julia Richman High School, New York; "El Estudiante Comercial," High School of Commerce, New York. D. Alfred Coester, the Secretary-Treasurer of our Association, left New York on the 2nd of April for an extended trip through South America. Teachers will find interest in reading the following table which represents the foreign language situation in the high schools of New York on February 14, 1918: 382 424 16,478 Latin 3,706 3.270 2.851 2,365 1,823 1,655 Spanish Spanish is now accepted for entrance by most of the eastern universities and colleges, on a par with French or German, year for year. The New York State Board of Regents accepts it equally with French or German for the college entrance diplomas granted by them for entrance to courses in arts, sciences and engineering in the various higher institutions of the State. It is likewise accepted for the Cornell undergraduate scholarships. In view of the increasing demand for Spanish, it would be pertinent for the College Entrance Examination Board to offer a paper in third-year Spanish as well as in second-year now offered. The Regents of the University are planning to offer a fourth-year paper. Mr. W. L. Fichte, formerly of the High School of Commerce of New York, has been appointed instructor in Spanish in the United States Naval Academy, and has taken up his duties at Annapolis. Fifty-four candidates for license to teach Spanish in the New York City high schools appeared at the examination held by the Board of Examiners of the Department of Education of that city on September 5. Teachers of Spanish who desire to enter the New York City system should write to the Board of Examiners or to Mr. L. A. Wilkins, 500 Park avenue, New York City, for further information. Dr. E. C. Hills, formerly professor of Spanish in Colorado College, and editor of modern language texts for D. C. Heath and Co., was made librarian of the Hispanic Society of America last spring. His genial personality. able scholarship, love and devotion for Spanish things, are well known. Miss Gracia L. Fernández, formerly a teacher in the high school of South Pasadena, is a member of the Spanish department of the Bay Ridge High School, New York. She is a willing and helpful worker in the affairs of the local board. Mr. M. A. De Vitis, formerly of Dallas High School, Texas, is now teaching in the Fifth Avenue High School, Pittsburgh. Dr. C. F. Sparkman, formerly of the Spanish department of the De Witt Clinton High School, is now in charge of the Spanish work in the Agricultural and Mechanical College, College Station, Texas. Dr. Manuel Barranco, formerly a teacher of Spanish in the High School of Commerce, New York, has been appointed director of instruction of the Federal District, Mexico City. He began his duties September, 1917. Miss Juanita Case, formerly of the Oakland Technical High School, is now giving a very good account of herself at the Bryant High School, New York. Miss Margaret C. Dowling, for several years instructor in Spanish in the Mission High School, San Francisco, has been recently appointed head of the Department of Modern Languages. Miss Anna Ruth Barker, B. A. and M. A., from the Spanish department of Leland Stanford Junior University, has been appointed instructor in Spanish at the Sacramento High School. REVIEWS Fundamentals of Spanish Grammar, by Alice Huntington Bushee. Benj. H. Sanborn & Co., Boston, 1917. 8vo, xii + 124 pp. Miss Bushee has written an extremely original and readable textbook in her Fundamentals of Spanish Grammar. There is nothing quite like it in modern language grammars published in this country. It is refreshing for the jaded reviewer to find a grammar which has departed from the oft-beaten track. This grammar is based on the deductive method. We have had grammars of that type before, but in them the deductions are printed for those who do not care to take the trouble to deduce, and for those who wish to verify their deductions. Not so with Miss Bushee's grammar. He who deduces not, learns not. Now who shall say that this is not exactly the kind of textbook that the American student needs? He has been fed so long on the doctrines of “make it easy for the learner" and "play while you work" that he will not open his mouth to catch the fruit dropping from the tree of knowledge as he lies on his back. This grammar forces the student to think for himself. Therefore it will not be a best seller. Furthermore, it presupposes a thorough knowledge of Spanish on the part of the instructor, and so teachers of Spanish will be chary of using such a book. The Fundamentals of Spanish Grammar, to quote from the preface, "is intended primarily for students who are already acquainted with one or more foreign languages, i. e., those in colleges which require a language for admission and in summer schools where it is desirable to finish the grammar in a few weeks." It seems to me, however, that it would be pretty hard sledding for the student who has studied German but has not studied either Latin or French to get anywhere with this book. As a matter of fact, it would be absolutely essential to have studied Latin and French. Without these two languages the student would be completely at sea. The grammar contains twenty-five lessons, but five of them being reviews, we have actually only twenty in which grammar and syntax are explained or deduced. For a book of its size, one hundred and twenty-four pages, the introduction on pronunciation is fairly complete, and Miss Bushee insists throughout the text on the necessity of correct pronunciation. It is difficult to understand, however, why the author should ask repeatedly for the reason of the change of ≈ to c before e and i. This is one of the very few inconsistencies in Spanish orthography and cannot be explained by the rule that " has the voiceless th sound before a, o, u, before consonants and at the end of a word." That rule does not explain the pronunciation of the letter seda itself which the author gives, and the two or three pages of proper names in Zerolo that begin with ze or zi. Nor does it explain the pronunciation of the name of the author of that standard dictionary, a name which must often be men tioned in Spanish classes. I do not understand what is meant by the statement that r in comer is similar to trilled r in there, not like ther in father. there being nor in either word unless followed by a vowel in my pronunciation. Miss Bushee makes no mention of the pronunciation of intervocalic g and gu before vowels. This sound is not a stop like g in got, it is a spirant. As a matter of fact, g before u has entirely disappeared in parts of Spain and in some Spanish American countries. One is amazed at the amount of grammar that has been crammed into this little book. It is by no means a quack teacher's "Spanish at a glance" From the very outset the author cautions the student to "learn every Spanish word by heart and to work out the exact meaning of every phrase and idiom." "It is not the time," she wisely remarks, "for getting a general idea or for rapid reading." It is rather a jolt to the woodenly-minded college professor to find the subjunctive treated in the second lesson, but the presupposed linguistic training of the student should dispel any unfavorable criticism on that point. How does Miss Bushee teach grammar and syntax? Let us take the first lesson as a model. After giving the infinitive, present indicative, and imperative forms of the three regular conjugations and ser, without translations, but with a few questions and observations, twenty-five Spanish phrases are placed before the student. He will then "read and determine the meaning, looking up as few words as possible." There are no vocabularies in the lessons. He is then asked: "What are the four forms of the definite article? Gender and number of each? Note the contraction with de (sentence 10 but not 9)." The student then deduces the answers from the model sentences. The average American student accustomed to having his knowledge carefully prededuced and handed out to him attractively garnished on a platter will flee from methods like these as from a pest. You can "call spirits from the vasty deep. . . . But will they come when you do call for them?" Let us suppose, for instance, that I am a good student of Latin and German. The first lesson seems to be concerned with gender. I have deduced the masculine and feminine forms of the definite and indefinite article. I search in vain for a neuter gender. I must finally deduce from silence on the subject that Spanish has no neuter. In this first lesson then. in addition to the articles, the contraction of de and el, the gender of nouns and adjectives, the student will learn by deductions and notes the formation of the plurals of nouns and adjectives and agreement of the same, the use of possessive expressions, and the substitution of the article for the possessive pronoun with parts of the body. There follows an exercise of fourteen short sentences, followed by a request to write original sentences illustrating the grammatical points taken up in the lesson. How is it humanly possible for a student without any feeling at all for the language, and with a knowledge acquired by the deductions in one lesson, to write original sentences? Some of us do not permit students in the first stages of their study to put English phrases into the foreign language! The verb is made the pivotal point about which each lesson is centered |