Success of the Natural Method in Language at Chautauqua.
The natural method has been for several years past on trial, and has achieved a marked success. It has been practically demonstrated that in a very short time persons can be taught to speak French or German, or indeed any language for which there is a competent living teacher. The modern languages have been most successful because it is not easy to find those sufficiently familiar with the ancient ones to give to their pupils the necessary practice in them. Yet, even Greek and Latin have been taught to be spoken in this way. In the modern languages, however, but a few weeks have been needed to enable persons to speak them fluently and understand them well when spoken. From the beginning the scholar is taught to speak in the simple way in which the mother-tongue is taught in childhood. With the very first lesson single words at the beginning and then some simple phrases are mastered. These are increased with each succeeding lesson, and soon the pupil finds that he has quite a store of the words and phrases most commonly in use. By frequent practice these are retained, and others being daily added, at the end of six weeks, or thereabouts, of constant study, any ordinary conversation can be carried on with a facility which astonishes those accustomed only to the slow and tedious processes of the older methods.
It has been fortunate for the Chautauqua Assembly that teachers have taught here from the beginning who have been thoroughly devoted to this method of instruction. Hence the success of the schools, which have already attained to very large numbers, and have secured enthusiastic interest in all those who have attended them. Though the number of last year exceeded that of any that preceded it, it was but an earnest of what is yet to come. Any prediction of the future outcome of these schools, which would be recognized as at all moderate by others, would fall far short of what is confidently expected of them by those familiar with this natural method of instruction, and with the success with which it has met in the Chautauqua schools.
