Must these hardships necessarily be connected with the study of languages? Is there no way to reach the same or even better results, with less difficulty;—are there no means to open education to a still greater circle, indeed to open it to all, to make a common road smooth, easy and agreeable?
The cordial reception given by educators of the best class to my "Studien und Plaudereien," (first series), has led me, in connection with my brother Mr. Menco Stern, to write a second series "Studien und Plaudereien" (im Vaterland).
I earnestly hope this second series may prove as practically useful as the first.
In response to the many inquiries I have received concerning the method of conducting my classes, I will say that
1) I prepare every lesson with the utmost care, taking "Studien und Plaudereien" as basis and guide, at the same time endeavoring to make them as interesting as possible.
2) I have arranged all the important rules of the German grammar so as to teach them from the very first in a certain number of lessons, orally, and give the students a printed German grammar afterward, to review and to perfect their grammatical knowledge; they are thus made to understand, value and even enjoy the study of grammar.
3) In teaching, I make my students understand, speak, read and write, but do not exercise any one faculty or function at the expense of any other.
4) My teaching is always full of life and animation; we do not confine ourselves to books; all there is in this world worth being thought of or spoken about, all that is great, good and beautiful, we draw into the circle of our studies.
5) We speak only German in our German classes.
I wish to repeat here what I have said on many other occasions, that the progress made of late years in teaching of languages is due to a great extent to the powerful impulse given by Prof. Gottlieb Heness, through his valuable observations upon linguistic study, and more especially through his ingenious and admirable rule of teaching a language in its own words, that is: German in German and French in French, and further by showing us clearly how to apply the rules of teaching languages as given principally by Pestalozzi and Diesterweg.