schools. The plan of each lesson is in general like that followed in the larger work. The book is profusely illustrated. The second part, pages 225-308, contains models for letters, commercial forms, grammatical explanations and tables, and a general index.

1917-World Book Co. $1.00.

Maria (Novela Americana)

por Jorge Isaaca.

Edited by Ralph Hayward Keniston, Ph. D., of Cornell University. VIII + 209 pages (127 text, 16 notes, 11 exercises, 54 vocabulary). The preface contains good suggestions as to the use of the text and the teaching of Spanish in general. The introduction gives the necessary biographical and literary background. The text itself, an interesting story of moderate difficulty, is a welcome addition to our materials for the study of SpanishAmerica from the standpoint of the South American. The notes explain allusions in the text and go into grammatical difficulties pretty thoroughly. The brief exercises are intended to be suggestive only. One is tempted here to ask just what purpose such exercises serve. Experienced teachers prefer to make their own exercises or else wish to be spared the drudgery. Inexperienced teachers find rather full exercise material very helpful. If this is the case, "suggestive" of "illustrative" exercises are hardly worth while. It is hard to strike the mean in this matter, but a larger amount of such material as Professor Keniston has given us would have been very welcome. 1918-Ginn & Co. 80 cents.

La Conjuración de Venecia

by Martínez de la Rosa.

Edited by Arthur L. Owen of the University of Kansas, and John Thomas Lister of Olivet College.

XXXVII + 191 pages (135 text, 55 vocabulary). The rather elaborate introduction gives a good biography of the author and the historical matter necessary for understanding the play. A good bibliography follows. Footnotes deal with difficulties of grammar and style and carefully explain the names and customs alluded to in the text. Suitable for the second or third semester in college, the third year in high school.

1917-Sanborn & Co. 90 cents.

In the review of "La Conjuración de Venecia" on page 67 of the February number of HISPANIA, the senior editor's name is incorrectly stated. It should read Arthur L. Owen.

Selections from the Novelas Ejemplares of Cervantes

Edited by Hugo A. Rennert of the University of Pennsylvania. XII +218 pages (138 text. 21 notes, 56 vocabulary). Professor Rennert has chosen for the text two selections; La Gitanilla and El Licenciado Vidriera. As the book is intended for advanced classes, the notes are brief and deal largely with literary and historical matters. The vocabulary, while compact. is full and lists the difficult expressions of the text with great detail. 1918-Holt & Co. 90 cents.

El Capitán Veneno

by Alarcón.

Edited by Ventura Fuentes and Victor E. François of the College of the City of New York.

VI+ 229 pages (100 text, 16 notes, 38 exercises, 72 vocabulary). This is a good edition of a well-known Spanish text. The various exercises furnish plenty of drill upon the text. The vocabulary is unusually full.

1918-Holt & Co. 60 cents.

Pitman's Manual of Spanish Commercial Correspondence

by G. R. MacDonald.

XII + 328 pages. The body of the work is made up of lists of phrases, Spanish and English, in parallel columns, letters in Spanish, and in English to be translated into Spanish. The letters cover a wide variety of business subjects and forms, but many of them do not meet the needs of our schools. n. d.-Pitman & Sons. $1.50.

Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar

by C. A. Toledano.

252 pages. The first part of the book (pages 1-127) contains the usual outline of grammar with exercises from Spanish into English and English into Spanish. Commercial vocabularies take up pages 128-168. Pages 164-232 continue the grammatical lessons in greater detail. Reprint of edition of 1911. 1915-Putnam & Sons. $1.00.

Classroom Spanish

by Marie A. Solano of the South Boston High School and the Boston Normal School.

14 pages. This little manual is the product of the experience of a successful teacher of Spanish in preparatory schools. Young or inexperienced teachers of Spanish will find the pamphlet very helpful and suggestive. 1917-D. C. Heath & Co. 10c.

Spanish Verb Blanks

by I. H. B. Spiers of the William Penn Charter School, Philadelphia. These verb blanks which many teachers will find useful are put up in pads of 35.

D. C. Heath & Co. 40c.

HIGH SCHOOL OF COMMERCE

BOSTON, MASS.

JOEL HATHEWAY

II. PERIODICAL LITERATURE

PEDAGOGICAL JOURNALS

The Modern Language Journal, II, 3, Dec.-S. W. Waxman, A Jeremiad on Modern Language Teaching. (Though the author may be a bit too pessimistic, he nevertheless says many excellent things. He laments, as we all do, the diversity of aim in our field. It is difficult to keep up with all the new methods proposed. The system in vogue in many cities of providing free text-books is bad. Having completed the course, the pupil must turn the book in, though he needs it for review and reference. There is too much of the idea of "making it easy for the pupil." Memorizing is getting to be a lost art, though we cannot dispense with memory in the teaching of language. A course in phonetics or conversation is usually more valuable for the teacher than one of mere educational theory. The method of teaching depends upon the teacher's personality; also upon the nature of the institution and its clientèle. Above all beware of panaceas. "Hitherto, we may have done little else than teach a knowledge of grammar and train students to read ordinary prose; now there is grave danger of throwing over this solid knowledge for a few catch phrases like ‘Open the door,' 'Shut the window,' or 'How do you do?" There is no reason why speaking and reading knowledge should not be combined. But "when a high school student gets five to ten minutes of individual attention per week it is utterly ridiculous to suppose that he can learn to speak a foreign language." Guard against the democratic danger of leveling down rather than up. Every student is given a chance to do good work. If he fritters away his opportunities, do not slight brilliant pupils in his favor.) P. H. Grummann, Problems of the Elementary German Course. R. GerigEdwards. A Demonstration of Spanish Class-room Work. F. Bennett, Translation Study and Immediate Study of German. A Comparison. (By the "Immediate Method" this teacher means instructing students not merely to translate but to be able to reverse the process, that is to be able to give German equivalents of English words when called for. Carefully compiled statistics seem to show that the "Immediate Method" is the more efficient.)

4, Jan.-J. Sachs, Desirability of a Syllabus of French and German Texts. (A plea for the standardization of a sequence of texts, starting with those representative of the ordinary speech and leading up to the masterpieces of style. Without a doubt conditions are in this respect too chaotic in the modern language field. Too few teachers select a text with reference to what has gone before and what is to follow. Yet it is to be hoped we shall never reach the cut-and-dried standardization which teachers of the classics have attained to the sacrosanct and never-to-be-varied sequence of Caesar, Cicero, Vergil, for instance.) A. Betz, The Function of Dictation in the Teaching of Modern Languages. ( (Valuable hints as to handling this part of the work. A dictation exercise involves (1) The correct speaking of the word. (2) The correct hearing of the word. (3) The visual appearance of the word. (4) The writing movement. Each sentence should be read twice only. Care should be taken not to break up a stress group. Students should make their own corrections. By tabulating errors the teacher can analyze

his pupil's difficulties.) J. E. Spink, French in the Pre-High School Period. (An excellent article on methods used in grade teaching.) J. Van Horne, Spanish Texts and the Spanish Language. (We are now well supplied with elementary readers. The difficulty comes with the choice of a second book. There is in Spanish a dearth of stories of adventure written in simple, colloquial language. While the reviewer has never found the novels of Palacio Valdés and Pérez Galdós too difficult for students in this stage of development, the same may not be true of all students in all institutions. wider choice is desirable.)

Clearly a

Bulletin of High Points, I, 7, Dec.-W. L. Hervey, Notes on "War Work." L. A. Wilkins, Fallacies that Exist in the Teaching of Spanish. (Spanish is not easy to acquire, nor can it be learned in a short time. Principals share this fallacy when they engage teachers of only a year's experience with the language. Pupils unable to learn Latin, French, or German will do no better in Castilian. Spanish is easy neither to pronounce nor to understand. It takes longer, according to the author, to gain the ability to understand spoken Spanish than German or French. The reviewer's experience coincides with that of Mr. Wilkins. One reason is because Spanish has so few vowel sounds. Another is that most of us have been insufficiently drilled in the matter of liaison, scarcely less important in Spanish than in French. The many elisions not indicated in print, as well as the numerous diphthongs resulting from the running together of words, make certain combinations unrecognizable to the student who has learned to pronounce words as units. He thinks to hear lecho when he really hears le he hecho. Spanish grammar, too, has many difficulties. Most good students, I find, have little trouble with the irregular verbs, because the difficulty is here obvious. Difficulties not easily recognizable as such offer most trouble. Syntax is harder than morphology. The extreme richness of Spanish in vocabulary, idiom, and proverb is a stumbling-block. Add to this the lack of good dictionaries and the absence of many another tool necessary for the scholar. The second great fallacy, according to Mr. Wilkins, is the ignorant belief that Spanish possesses no first-rate literature, and hence should be studied for commercial reasons solely. There follows a plea for Spanish as a cultural subject.)

II, 1, Jan.-Concerning Memory Work with a Notable Speech in French to be Memorized. (The psychology of memory. How the passage to be memorized should be chosen so as to bring into play all the factors by which memory is conditioned. "The purposes of teaching memory passages are at least two: (1) To give the student for life-long retention thoughts of exceptional worth, beauty, or power, clothed in terms of the foreign language that are simple yet forceful. (2) To create a feeling for the foreign language." G. A. Sherwell, Differences Between Spanish and Spanish-American Usages in Language and Pronunciation. (A brief bibliography of the best works on South American dialects. One should welcome the conservative influence of the Academy, while recognizing the need of innovations in the vocabulary. Many interesting examples of South American vulgarisms in vocabulary and pronunciation. In conclusion the author strongly advocates the Castilian pronunciation, having been converted from the other view.)

2, Feb.-L. A. Wilkins, The American and the Foreign Teacher of Foreign Languages. (The native is weak where the foreigner is strong and vice versa. The two supplement one another. In a well crganized modern language department both kinds of teachers should be used. We should like to remind our readers that this matter has been ably discussed by A. MorelFatio in his Ambrosio de Salazar, Paris, 1901, chap. iii. We feel that Mr. Wilkins is wrong in demanding naturalization of foreigners before they may teach. Loyalty cannot be secured by compulsion. Besides, the rule works both ways. We should not like to see our missionary teachers required to abandon their American citizenship before they are permitted to give instruction abroad.) Verb Nomenclature in Spanish. (The system advocated is good and does not depart from common usuage. But shall we not do better to work in harmony with the committee of the Modern Language Association which is endeavoring to standardize grammatical nomenclature for all languages?) Mary G. Wendell, Foreign Language Values; Helping the Pupil to See Them

School and Society, VII, 158.-P. E. Davidson, Concerning Mental Discipline and Educational Reform. 164.-E. C. Moore, Formal Discipline and the Teaching of Literature. 167.-E. F. Hauch, A Few Popular Misconceptions with Regard to Language Study. (The candid teacher of languages, if asked the purpose of his teaching, will reply: "For a living." Let us hope that psychologists and professors of education, if asked the same question, will be equally candid. Latin and Greek got their start on account of their then great practical utility. Only when hard pressed did the teachers of them discover that these subjects had marked disciplinary value. The author seems unaware that the extreme views of Thorndike and others, who held that disciplinary value is non-existent and that ability acquired in one branch of study is not transferable to another, have long since been repudiated by leading psychologists, Mr. Flexner to the contrary notwithstanding. Nevertheless we may agree with him that we rest the case for our subject on firmer grounds than its disciplinary value.) The modern languages likewise found a place in the curriculum as a direct result of social and economic pressure. "Commercial necessity, real or fancied, is forcing recognition for Spanishthat most chivalrous and uncommercial of western languages-upon our school programs. The really strange aspect of the situation is the almost apologetic attitude on the part of some of our academic teachers of it toward this apparent cause for the increased importance of a knowledge of Spanish. There ought to be no need, at any rate, to drag in the fetish of disciplinary value. If commerce and its interests and by-products are something of which to be ashamed, then there is something vastly wrong somewhere with our civilization." The practical importance of modern languages to professional men and others. It is impossible to rely upon translations of scientific works or to wait for them to appear; frequently they are never forthcoming. Languages widen the intellectual horizon and create the "international mind,” never so sorely needed as at present. "Knowledge of the foreigner's speech is at least the beginning of a better understanding." Mere translation is condemned. But on the other hand it is an equal fallacy to suppress grammar in