VORWARTS

In pointing to the neglect of the study of German in secondary schools the Department of Germanic Languages at Columbia University calls attention to a serious flaw in the training of American youth. This neglect in preparatory schools of a language which has become so important in the establishment of international understanding and in renewed commercial relations with Germany results in a severe clogging of elementary German courses in colleges.

Ever since the war, with the exception of the larger preparatory and city high schools, the German language has been overlooked in a high percentage of the nation's schools. The resulting situation at Harvard illustrates the general condition. Faced with the language requirements, hoards of incoming Freshmen are turned over to the German Department to be equipped in a year or two with the reading knowledge of German necessary for the degree requirements and the demands of study in an important language of science. To accomplish this work is a heavy tax on, both the university officials and the student body. Men are kept back from advanced study until they possess the necessary key to unlock the storehouse of much knowledge. Considerable time, as well, is spent in elementary work that might better be done in lower schools where the mental discipline would be more keenly beneficial to younger minds, and where there would be no time taken from other more advanced subjects.

The recent survey conducted at Columbia shares a unanimous sentiment among national leaders in public life, industry, and education favoring the re-instatement of German in the secondary curriculum. If the elimination of Germanic studies was a foolish manifestation of war-time hysteria, to allow public prejudice and the negligence of school authorities to block its return is but a perfect example of the old story, cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.