First Steps in German

Excerpt from First Steps in German

During many years occupied in teaching German, both in England and America, we have never found a preparatory course which follows Nature's teachings, which addresses itself to the imagination of the learner, and furnishes that most primitive faculty of his with views and descriptions — both in poetry and prose — simply requiring him to do for them, what the sulphuric acid accomplishes for the photographic picture on the silver tablet to create an indelible impression upon his mind — Nature's second gift ever completes the first. The authors of many higher grammars have condescended to write preparatory books for the larger work; but we are sorry to say, with out especial regard to our American wants, these we have studied dur ing the past ten years, and as the result of that study, we trust this book is calculated to supply a great educational deficiency. Conscious though we are of still remaining imperfections, we have been driven by an almost irresistible inward force, to smite the rock, at last, for fresh and living waters, over the first stepping-stones of the German lan guage. And, where should we seek for these gushing springs, save in the Songs of the People? In their writings inspired by Nature, and tuned through the scale of their distinctive originality in thought and feeling? The life and Spirit of a people is imbedded in the idiom of their language, and there alone can be revealed to us that new soul we wish to acquire, when we resolve to study a foreign tongue. And now we stand before an ever agitated question, that of the orthodox manner of attacking the first instruction in a language for the latter can be either analytic or synthetic, practical or grammatical Two camps, defending the opposite extremes, have appeared, and still exist the watchword of the one Here Ghibellines! N 0 Grammar at all! Practical exercises exclusive of everything else! The theory of the language latent in them! And of the other Here Guelphs! Theory! Grammar! The practical part is only the corollary of theory!