artificial theme form, the short staccato sentences, and the unvaried sentence structure give the pupil a perverted notion of the English language. But beyond all this, the fact that the theme structure does not lend itself readily to the introduction of conversational expressions while still preserving the advantages of the theme idea, makes it necessary to discard the formal arrangement of sentences in series just as soon as the theme has served the purpose of helping the pupil to understand simple English and to use it. No advantage is gained by sticking to the form, by writing paragraphs as if they were stanzas, by placing a word at the right of each line, by incorporating in the theme sentences which are not serially connected and which cannot be made clear by connecting them with ideas presented by demonstration.

An illustration of a persistent orthodox adherence to the theme form is furnished by the otherwise excellent themes in Teaching English to NonEnglish-speaking Selectives. Lesson 46 is entitled "The Family."

married..........

children..

boy-girl.

My friend is a married man.
.He has a wife and three children.
.He has two boys and one girl.

father mother... .I have a father and a mother.
sister-brother....I have a sister and a brother.

relatives..

babies...

slaughter......

.I have other relatives.

The Germans have killed many

mothers and babies.

.The Germans have slaughtered
many children.

The very fact that this theme form is found as late as Lesson 46 is an indication that the spirit of the theme has departed, and "only the letter liveth." By the time the learner has had a dozen themes he will have acquired the ability to understand simple English and to speak many sentences. He will by this time recognize the artificiality of the instruction he is receiving and wonder where the English which is taught in school is spoken. It is not uncommon for teachers to use the theme form with advanced pupils as well as with beginners. The writer was present in one such school when a rather intelligent Bohemian, speaking English fairly well, was assigned to an advanced class. Ten minutes after entering the room the man returned to say that he was going home. When pressed for a reason, he said: "This is the third school where I have tried to learn English. They all say 'I go to the door,' and I'm going."

The theme method lends itself admirably to giving the pupil a body of language for future use. In its method of development it is analytic, proceeding from the larger to the smaller, from the theme topic to the sentences, and from these to the words; through each theme the pupil has learned to speak a number of connected sentences, to understand the meanings of these sentences, and to understand a great many words. Moreover, he has learned all this by associating the language forms directly with the ideas represented.

ANALYTIC-SYNTHETIC METHODS

If the teachers stopped there they would not have helped the pupils to use words in sentences, and sentences to express larger thoughts; hence the necessity for supplementing the pure theme method by a process which shall go on from where the theme leaves off, for following the analytic process by a synthetic process.

Realizing the necessity of breaking up the concatenation of sentences in the theme into the various permutations and combinations of words and sentences which make up our daily speech, Professor Walter has invented a technique, the so-called "Frankfort variation," which derives its name from the city in which it was first used. In this method the teacher, after he has developed a number of themes, directs the pupils to make sentences about things seen rather than about things done. Thus the pupils describe the acts of another person rather than their own, as when they say:

You are walking into the room.

You are sitting down.

You are taking a book.

You are opening a book.
You are reading.

You are closing the book.

The possibilities for changing person, number, and gender, and in English particularly for teaching the progressive form of the verb, have made this addition to the pure Gouin method valuable. The variation is possible, however, only after the pupils have learned the sentences of a number of themes, and is applicable only to sentences learned through the theme.

A type of analytic-synthetic method very much used where a socialized atmosphere prevails in classes, is the method of dramatizing life situations. The chief purpose of the method is to bring some phases of the pupil's outside-ofschool life into the schoolroom, thus providing a content which centers in the pupil rather than in the teacher. As a by-product of directly relating the lesson to the everyday home, industrial, recreational, and intellectual interests of the pupil, there results, first, a more thoroughly motivated lesson than is possible with subject matter carefully graded with respect to language difficulties, and, second, a means for fixing the comparatively few idiomatic conversational expressions required by anyone in talking with Englishspeaking people.

After exercise with a number of themes, when the pupils are beginning to try to talk, the teacher

suggests that two pupils dramatize the buying of a hat, or finding one's way, or asking for a position. The pupils may have read lessons in the textbook on these very topics and they may have had themes on them; nevertheless, experience has shown that rarely will they be able to conduct a conversation of four or five sentences in idiomatic English without direct training in conducting such conversations. To the teacher the pupils' attempts at original oral composition are extremely valuable, indicating the kind of lesson as well as the nature of the subject matter needed. Thus the teacher suggests that “hello” is not the proper expression to use in addressing a clerk in a store, nor is the retort, "What you want?” proper from the clerk. The class is called upon to offer suggestions. A fairly well advanced class, such as would profit by a lesson of this kind, would probably be able to offer a great many suggestions picked up in the shop or on the street, some of them of doubtful value. The teacher selects only a few good expressions, places them on the board, and instructs the pupils to copy the expression which they like best.

PRINCIPLES, NOT PRESCRIPTIONS

Teachers of English to the foreign born are beginning to resent the question, "What method do you use?" It is a healthy sign that the pedagogy of the subject is outgrowing its infant stages with their attendant illnesses. In the beginning the methods of teaching were regarded as sets of