Text-Books for Preparatory SchoolsAuthor(s): A. de RougemontSource: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 5, No. 6 (Jun., 1890), pp. 190-191Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2919516 .

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379 Jnize. AMODERN LANG UA GE NO T'ES, I890. No. 6. 380

selected, apparently, to suibstantiate his dialect hypotheses, not to show differences b)etween scribes. Indeed, in the earlier discussion, wherein by the use of io, zo, he seeks to estab- lish that B vas more faithful to his text than A, he omits, if I mistake not, the fact that A uses io five times, jo three times. Neither is my list, although containing many more words, exhaustive, as I gathered it incidenitally in the coturse of a more extended inlvestigation. Further, as regards the leveling of a79 to 4, it is asserted that this has no significance, and referenice is made to ?I99 ff . of SIEVERS' ' Old En1glish Granmnar. SWEET agrees with SIE- VERS. Nevertheless, it may be well to collect further data in view of the fact that it seems to be establislhed, "'that in the twelfth and tlhirteenth centuries the two sotunids of initial Iii were already in existence as they inow are, anid in the same words ' (F. A. BLACKBURN in the Ainerican Jornzal of Philology, vol. iii, pp. 46 if.).

I decline to accept "The Battle of Mlaldon" as evidence, since \NTuLKER in his ' Grunidriss says concernilng it (iii, ?330), " 1726 druckte Hearine das Bruchstuick. Bald darauf (I73I) ging die Hancdschrift beim Brande der Cot- toniaia zu grtunde, so dass vir jetzt auf Hearne's Druck aufgewieseni sind." In such a matter as final b xvhat confidence can be placed in a copy made in I72I and, since the MS. was burned five years later, probably never collated with the original ?

CHAS. DAVIDSON. Belmnoni, C(al.

PASSY'S 'LE FRANCAIS PARLE.' TO THE EDITORS OF MOD. LANG. NOTES:

SIRS: -In the AMarclh issue (vol. vp P. 93) of your jouri1al you mention1 PAUL PASSY'S 'lIe franyais parle' in a way that calls for some remiarks. No one is miiore convincecl than I that the best teachlingC of Frenich pronun- ciation must be based on phonetic treatment au1d that PAUL PASSY is perfectly riglht in his nmethod and priniciple of notation. But he lhas taken his ideas of practical pronuniciationi from the speeclh that prevails oni the Paris boule- vards instead of fronm that of the mass of edti- cated people. Youi wvill undcloubtedly grant that a teacher of Eniglish pronuniciatiorn wlho should

instruct his puipils to proniounice 'ospilal and 'air- inistead of 'hlospital' and 'hair,' because he has heard this in ILondoni, would be egregiously in the wrong. Still, nu/tais mulandis, that is exactly what PAUL PASSY is guilty of. Then what shall we say of his notation les=l, which is not only contrary to usage, contrary to the prescription of every treatise on pronunciation (including the last grammar of DA COSTA recently published for the schools of the city of Paris), but even classed as somethlinag clhar- acteristic of the prontinciationi of Sotutherui Frenclhnmen, wlhose pectuliarities cannot be called good Frenclh. I am sorry to find fauLlt with the practical part of a book that under different conditions might have rendered aIn invaluLable service.

ALPHONSE N. VAN DAELL. lassachXuse/is Insiitue of Technolq,ogy.

TEXT-BOOKS FOR PREPARATORY' SCHOOLS.

TO THE EDITORS OF AMOD. LANG. NOTES: SIRS:-The new prograam setting forth the re-

quiremiients in Mlodern Languages for admission to Nexv Englaand colleges will suirely work a greatly needed inmprovemenit in the methods of teachinlg; the brief statenment it contains will haave all the power of ani enactmiient in that direction.

'I'he subordinate quiestioni of text-books for reading lhas been necessarily cuirtailecl, yet was not left utntouclhed. The fraamers of the program had many pertinent tlhings to say on the subject. Their ideas, thoug-h not ex- pressed for want of roonm, are too valuable to be lost for those wlhomi it may concern. Here tlhey are in a nut-shell:

Text-books for reading oulght to have certain quialities : a.-They slhoulcd be edited by per- son1s who really know the languiages in whicl the books are wvritten; b.-Initerestinig, thougl short initrodutctionis relatinig to the books anCI the authors of tlheml , are desirale; c.-The notes ought to be v-ery carefully worked out, and be inot only (i) explanatory, but also, (2) suggestive in every direction, (3) s iramecl as to quicken the powers of observation of the stuident, anid (4) conldlutcive to the riglht initer- pretation of the tlhotughts of the auitlhor.

This is an adclendunm to the prog-rami which,

I90

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38I June. MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES, I890. No. 6. 382

it is hoped, will have the force of by-law; for it must be confessed that most books hitherto edited for the special purpose of giving read- ing matter in the modern languages are wo- fully wanting in the above qualities: blunders and misinterpretations are frequent; the notes are too often worked out in a slovenly way, inaccuirate or irrelevant, never inviting re- flection, never leading to original observa- tion-let alone the total absenice of literary interpretation, or commenitary on the thoughts of the writer.

It is well known that books of any kind are primarily brought out by the publishers because it is thought there is money in them. rhis is as it should be; yet it seems that ex- cellenicy, or, if this be unattainable, efforts to approach it in editing, will in the long run be more profitable than a short-lived interest based on local and personal considerations.

A. DE ROUGEMONT. Clazutautqua University.

BRIEF MENTION. A second editionl has appeared of GASTON

PARIS" Litt6rature fransaise au moyen Age ' (cf. MOD. LANG. NOTES iv, p. 62). The author has here turned to account all the rectifica- tions cominig from ouitside sources, while of his own work of revision on the book he says: "je n'ai presque pas pass6 un jour sans y apporter quelque retouche, m'efforgant de le faire profiter de mes lectures ou de mes r6- flexions." The bibliographical notes, whiclh form so valuable a featuire of the manual, have been brough1t down to date, and a Tableva chronoologique of French literature, from its beginning to the middle of the fourteenth cenitury, lhas been appended. The importance and interest of this addition may be appreciat- ed, wlhen it is borne in mind that it is the first published attempt to grouLp in chronologi- cal order the productions of the earliest period, The bulk of the work as it originally appeared has not been noticeably enlarged, but small accretionis to numerous paragraphs constitute a genuine gain in completeness and accuracy.

Another work of considerable importance, in the Italian field, is the: 'Vocabolario etimologico italiano' of FRANCESCO ZAM-

BALDI. (CittA di Castello S. Lapi, i889). This is by far the most complete treatment which the subject has yet had. The labors of DIEZ, CAIX, ASCOLI, D'OVIDIO, TEZA'and the rest, have been made use of by the autlhor anid combinied with detailed investigationis of his own. The work fairly, if not entirely, represents the present status of this difficult and important subject. The volume is large, comprising 8io octavo pages (I44o column1t1s, besides go pages of index) of particularly closely printed matter. The arralngement is adnmirable. Every word is treated in the group to which it belongs, wlhich some- times makes an article cover many pages. This lhowever causes no difficulty, as the index (ill whiclh we have as yet discovered no omissions) indicates the page and subdivision of a page upon whiclh any desired word is treated. This sy,stem has the advantage of showing at a glalnce all the derivatives or cognates of a giveni form. The book is exceedingly oppor- tutne and valuable; among other reasons because it brings together a vast amount of matter formerly scattered and not always con troll able.

PERSONAL. Mr. JOHN D. EPES has been called to the

chair of English in Centre College (Danville, Ky.). Mr. EPEs is a graduate of Ranidolph- Macon College (A. B. i883); for three years after his graduation he taught English and Latin in the Wesleyan Female College (Virginia), and during the past two years he has pursued advanced courses in English, German and History at the Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. THOMAS MCCABE (cf. MOD. LANG. NCOTES, vol. iV, p. 225) has been called, as Associate Professor of Romance Languages, to Byrn Mawr College, Pa.

Dr. JOHN E. MATZKE (cf. MOD. LANG. NOTES vol. iv, p. 226) has been called to the chair of Romance Languages in the Univer- sitv of Indiana (Bloomington).

Mr. HENRY R. LANG, who was inadvertent- ly spoken of in the April number (col. 254) as connected with the Friends' School, Provi- dence, R. I., is Instructor in the Swain Free School, New Bedford, Mass.

19I

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