§ 20. From these rules of his we see that Ratke did much to formulate the main principles of Didactics. He also deserves to be remembered among the methodizers who have tackled the problem—how to teach a language.
At Köthen the instructor of the lowest class had to talk with the children, and to take pains with their pronunciation. When they knew their letters (Ickelsamer’s plan for reading Ratke seems to have neglected) the teacher read the Book of Genesis through to them, each chapter twice over, requiring the children to follow with eye and finger. Then the teacher began the chapter again, and read about four lines only, which the children read after him. When the book had been worked over in this way, the children were required to read it through without assistance. Reading once secured, the master proceeded to grammar. He explained, say, what a substantive was, and then showed instances in Genesis, and next required the children to point out others. In this way the grammar was verified throughout from Genesis, and the pupils were exercised in declining and conjugating words taken from the Book.
When they advanced to the study of Latin, they were given a translation of a play of Terence, and worked over it several times before they were shown the Latin.
The master then translated the play to them, each half-hour’s work twice over. At the next reading, the master translated the first half-hour, and the boys translated the same piece the second. Having thus got through the play, they began again, and only the boys translated. After this there was a course of grammar, which was applied to the Terence, as the grammar of the mother-tongue had been to Genesis. Finally, the pupils were put through a course of exercises, in which they had to turn into Latin sentences imitated from the Terence, and differing from the original only in the number or person used.
Raumer gives other particulars, and quotes largely from the almost unreadable account of Kromayer, one of Ratke’s followers, in order that we may have, as he says, a notion of the tediousness of the method. No doubt anyone who has followed me hitherto, will consider that this point has been brought out already with sufficient distinctness.
§ 21. When we compare Ratke’s method with Ascham’s, we find several points of agreement. Ratke would begin the study of a language by taking a model book, and working through it with the pupil a great many times. Ascham did the same. Each lecture according to his plan would be gone over “a dozen times at the least.” Both construed to the pupil instead of requiring him to make out the sense for himself. Both Ratke and Ascham taught grammar not by itself, but in connection with the model book.
But the points of difference are still more striking. In one respect Ratke’s plan was weak. It gave the pupils little to do, and made no use of the pen. Ascham’s was better in this and also as a training in accuracy. Ascham was, as I have pointed out, a “complete retainer.” Ratke was a “rapid impressionist.” His system was a good deal like that which had great vogue in the early part of this century as the “Hamiltonian System.” From the first the language was to be laid on “very thick,” in the belief that “some of it was sure to stick.” The impressions would be slight, and there would at first be much confusion between words which had a superficial resemblance, but accuracy it was thought would come in time.
§ 22. The contest between the two schools of thought of which Ascham and Ratke may be taken as representatives has continued till now, and within the last few years both parties have made great advances in method. But in nothing does progress seem slower than in education; and the plan of grammar-teaching in vogue fifty years ago was inferior to the methods advocated by the old writers.[62]