The Aural System

To learn a language time is required. the writer ventures to recommend the way he himself took when a boy to solve this question. Having made choice of a known grammar, the exercises of which promise a satisfactory degree of proficiency, let the student affix to each and all of the lessons at the outset, the dates when they are to be done and observe them. Some weeks a little perseverance and determination may be necessary, but let him be inflexible with himself, curtail his indulgences if required and his task will be done with ease. Some time ago, a Mr. Wm. Rodger came down from Glasgow for the purpose of showing how foreign languages should be taught. He brought on a gentleman, a clergyman from Leeds, who had gone through Otto’s German Grammar without being able either to speak or understand German; this gentleman was able to bear testimony to the merit of Mr. Rodger’s system because by it he had learnt to do both. Of course his testimony rested on one assumption. It assumed that having gone through Otto’s Grammar all learnt from it had been forgotten, and that the whole merit of his success was due to Mr. Rodger’s method.