Union, who's who in Latin American history (not long, full accounts, but enough for a nucleus to encourage further reading), folk-lore, topical monthly reviews of stories read in other classes,— oral reports on all these find a place here. Not all of course are used in a single term. One magazine or newspaper, for example, may furnish study for five or six weeks. (In using magazines or newspapers, a particular issue is selected and each pupil is provided with his own copy so that regular and careful preparation may be made.)

These are foraging classes, classes for browsing, classes for an elementary science vocabulary for the embryo investigator, a place for short cuts to a full vocabulary, a place to shine. Here each may follow his own bent far afield and bring back booty to exhibit in more or less (usually less) perfect Castilian to admiring freshmen or tolerant seniors-for the work dealing with material of a general nature, the prerequisites for any particular section are not specific, formal preparation but ability to appreciate, to hear understandingly and, within limits, to reproduce what is heard. The groups are therefore composite. All grades may meet to find an audience for their own work or be stirred to emulate the success of others; and each pupil brings what within assigned limits he chooses to gather.

Here in suitable sequence may enter occasional talks-in Spanish of course-by the teacher or by upper-class students on such topics as corrupt pronunciations; the intelligent attitude toward pronunciations used in Spanish America with demonstrations of these pronunciations; and Spanish American words, customs and holidays. In these weekly practice classes the young student should hear ballads, character sketches and stories from standard Spanish novels and plays, excerpts from such masters of style and vocabulary as Cervantes, Quintana, and Valera-the best, in short, from all the classes.

Such material is sometimes taken in clubs, but its first place is in the class. The class has the best right to the best we have.

To sum up, weekly practice classes seem to me to bring the worth-while part of Spanish, the live things, within the reach of all at the earliest possible moment; and at the same time they encourage individual initiative and permit a variety of necessary or desirable program adjustments.

I have spoken of short, articulated courses of general application-courses that relieve congestion and build up higher classes while strengthening weak pupils, advancing exceptional ones, and giving flexibility to the program-and of other weekly classes that reach out into history, literature, and current events. Let me speak now of two important types of work desirable for capable students in their second, third or fourth year of high school.

First, shorter cuts to the mechanism of a second foreign language and to a full and practical vocabulary, these are fruitful subjects for numbers of pupils and should not be left to haphazard treatment in ill-sorted classes.

How do you get the mechanism of a second or third language? Have you ever tried studying another language just to see how the problems look to pupils? How much faster can you absorb it than they do Spanish? Your short cuts should be allowed the pupil intelligent enough to use them. You focus on the subject from many angles. So should he.

Variety of word lists such as are found in Spanish at a Glance, early recognition of past and future forms, common irregular stems, the tricks of position of objective pronouns, clues in spelling,-these presented briefly, by one who knows, to the pupil that comes recommended in other foreign language work, there opens to him an infinite variety of easy reading matter from which to build a concrete vocabulary.

Flitting through the pages of little illustrated books on physiology, electricity, civics, and history, with the contents of which he is already familiar, he may, by a sort of Rosetta Stone method, gather many a common word; and he builds in this way no insecure vocabulary because he chooses his books according to his individual. bent and finds his terms not in figurative uses, but in their ordinary associations. Brief excerpts without illustration in school readers are difficult and lifeless compared with the above and with magazines and newspapers in which the context and wealth of illustration. are conclusive as to the application of terms.

Especially for prospective normal students in their fourth year of high school should there be provided an opportunity to learn how to use their knowledge of a foreign language. They should learn how and where if need be to get for themselves a little knowledge

of other languages and, perhaps also, how to apply such knowledge in presenting English to immigrants and the children of immigrants.

Secondly, there is in many textbooks a quantity of rich material that goes too often undeveloped until the time when it could have illuminated the work of our better pupils has passed; sometimes indeed it goes entirely unexplored. This happens because, in large and ill-sorted classes, other needs are more pressing and the knowledge necessary to appreciate such material is, in a majority of the pupils, lacking.

An example of such material is Ramsey's chapter on Word-Making by Derivatives. Such material makes for a full, rich knowledge of the language and accelerates pupils capable of advancement-and, if I may emphasize, no opportunity of encouraging merited promotion should be lost, if only to strengthen small upper classes and relieve congestion below.

In conclusion, let me repeat that I am urging not any courses referred to, but the needs these courses strive to satisfy.

The community pays for Spanish in the schools because it is desirable that a knowledge of things Spanish and Spanish-American help form the attitude of our growing boys and girls toward Spanish America, and because the community needs trained individuals to do specific things with Spanish. Our high school classes can achieve both ends if we do not blockade our capable and diligent pupils in unwieldy elementary classes or subject them all to the same lines of advanced work. We need a flexible program, taking into account individual and group needs and the credit value of thoroughness.

MISSION HIGH SCHOOL SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

MARGARET C. DOWLING

PERIODICALS IN SPANISH AVAILABLE FOR

THE CLASSROOM

The department of HISPANIA to be known as Hispanic News will attempt to keep abreast of the developments in literature, art and science throughout the Spanish-speaking world. It will do this by a review of reviews and by extensive quotations. For this number has been chosen a review of a few of the most important periodicals printed in Spanish available and suitable for use in the class

room.

A magazine printed in the United States will probably prove most satisfactory for classroom use. Though it will not have a tone so thoroughly Spanish as those printed abroad, it will be received with greater regularity; and in case a teacher wishes to use a large number of a single issue, they can be obtained more easily and economically.

The best known of the monthlies is the Boletín de la Unión PanAmericana. As this is the Spanish edition of the Bulletin of the PanAmerican Union, the magazine should be familiar to every student of Spanish in the United States. As its articles, on the other hand, are chiefly translations from English and other languages, though handsomely illustrated, they lack idiomatic zest; and treating wholly of America to the exclusion of Spain, they should be supplemented by another more genuinely Spanish periodical. If you are not acquainted with the Boletín, the editors will probably be pleased to send you a sample copy.

A good quarterly with a wider outlook is La Revista del Mundo, which is the Spanish edition of The World's Work. Again the articles are translations but are cosmopolitan in scope. The same is true of Inter-América, published by the American Association for International Conciliation.

Two monthlies of a different type, both handsomely illustrated, are La Revista Universal and the Spanish edition of The Pictorial Review. These are conducted or edited by Spanish-speaking persons to interest people of Spanish speech. They possess therefore the Spanish atmosphere and contain not only articles of general interest but also original stories and poems as well as reviews of liter

ary events in the Spanish world. Though the Pictorial Review, Spanish edition, is primarily a fashion magazine, yet its literary department is excellent. Another illustrated magazine which bids fair to become an excellent literary journal under its new editor, Martin Luis Guzmán, is El Gráfico.

There exist several commercial journals, of which a list is given below, conducted for the purpose of advertising North American goods to South Americans. The articles in them are well illustrated by half-tones and command a certain interest. Some even maintain a literary department. For students interested in the commercial side of Spanish, an occasional glance through the pages of one of them would be profitable.

For those who would like to read the news of the day in Spanish may be recommended the weeklies La Prensa and El Heraldo, which are printed and conducted in the form commonly used by daily papers.

In a class by itself is the weekly Las Novedades. It strives to live up to its aim, thus phrased by its editors "un compendio de cuanto se publica en castellano en el mundo durante la semana." Consequently it contains the most important items of news from each of the Spanish-speaking countries in addition to its literary articles. Having been long in existence, it is firmly established and has recently improved its general form.

Since all the foregoing are published in America with a general appeal to the Spanish-speaking countries, they do not possess the Spanish atmosphere found in a periodical printed in Spain. The commercial student even will find the commercial monthlies totally different in tone. The general student will find the most interest in the illustrated weeklies. The elaborate Ilustración Española y Americana is scarcely worth its high price. On the other hand Blanco y Negro will give satisfaction as its articles and illustrations cover the different fields of human endeavor. Many excellent short stories and poems appear in its pages. Moreover each number contains something humorous, an anecdote, poem or cartoon, thus representing a side of life of importance in the study of a people's language. A rival of this periodical is Nuevo Mundo, but from the American standpoint its tone is less refined.

For those who wish to study the language of Spanish science