NEW APPOINTMENTS ON THE TEACHING
STAFF OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY.

In the School of Theology Rev. Dr. Franz Cöln has been appointed Instructor in the Old Testament. He will also conduct a class of exegesis in the New Testament. Dr. Cöln taught for several years in the ecclesiastical seminary at Trier. He is deeply versed in several Oriental languages, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Coptic, and until recently was lecturer in Assyriology at the University of Bonn. For several years he edited the "Oriens Christianus," one of the most learned of the special reviews devoted to Oriental languages and literature. Dr. Cöln is about forty years of age, and takes up his important work with unique and highly admirable preparation. The Catholic University has now three Orientalists of acknowledged reputation, the nucleus of an excellent school of Scripture studies.

In the School of Letters Dr. Paul Gleis, a graduate of the University of Münster, has been appointed in German language and literature on the Anthony Walburg Chair. Dr. Gleis is a favorite disciple of Professor Jostes, professor of Germanics at Münster and a foremost authority on early German literature. Though a young man of only twenty-four Dr. Gleis has already won a reputation in the province of early medieval German and allied studies. Apart from his extensive and accurate knowledge of modern German literature, he has made proficient studies in the oldest phases of the Arthurian sagas, and has already taken his place among the most successful investigators of the Parsifal and Merlin legends. His advent will be welcomed by all American Germanists.

In the School of Philosophy Dr. Thomas C. Carrigan, of Worcester, Mass., a graduate in Education of Clark

University (1911), enters the Department Education as Instructor in School Organization and Management. Dr. Carrigan is thirty-nine years of age, a graduate of Holy Cross College, Worcester, and of the Boston Law School, and for fourteen years practiced law with success in his native city. For several years he has devoted himself with ardor to educational studies and is the author of a unique and important work on educational legislation: "The Law and the American Child." This dissertation received the highest praise from Dr. G. Stanley Hall, President of Clark University, as a very brilliant, thorough and unique study of the child legislation of all the states in the union. Dr. Carrigan will also conduct courses in the School of Law, to be determined later according to the needs of the students.

In the School of Law Mr. Ammi Brown, A.M. (Harvard, 1902), has been appointed Instructor in Common Law and will act as secretary of the Law Faculty. Mr. Vincent Leroy Toomey, LL.B. (Catholic University, 1909), has also been appointed Instructor in Common Law. Dr. Thomas C. Carrigan will conduct two courses, one on the Law of Wills and the other on Law and the American Child. The teaching staff in the Law Faculty now consists of five professors and instructors who devote their entire time to the conduct of the School. A large number of students have entered the first year of the Law School. Professor William C. Robinson, the head of the School and author of several widely used text-books of American law, has returned to his work in renewed health and with the above staff looks forward to a new life for the Department of Law.

In the School of Science Mr. Charles Lawler Kelly, A.B. (Clark College, Worcester, 1909), has been appointed Instructor in Chemistry. Mr. John James Cant

well, B.S. (The Catholic University, 1911), has been appointed Instructor in Drawing. Mr. John Joseph Haley, C.E. (Tufts College, 1911), has been appointed Instructor in Civil Engineering. Mr. James Francis Connor, A.B. (Amherst College, 1900), and for several years instructor in Mathematics at the Boys' Latin School, Baltimore, has been appointed Instructor in Mathematics.

The teaching staff of the University now numbers fiftyeight, including instructors, student-assistants and fellows. Of these twenty-four are ecclesiastics, the other thirty-four are laymen.

DISCUSSION.

FIRST STEPS IN WRITTEN LANGUAGE

When should the context method of reading be employed? Along what lines should the first steps in reading be conducted?

Since the publication of the article on The Context Method of Reading in the February number of the Review a great many questions similar to these two have reached us from primary teachers in various parts of the country. We shall endeavor to include the answers to as many of these questions as possible in the present discussion.

The context method, as its name implies, is not available in the initial stage of teaching the child to read. The fundamental principle in the context method demands that the unknown words be so distributed in a context of known words that the meaning of the sentence shall enable the child to discover the new word for himself. A written vocabulary, however limited, is an indispensable prerequisite to the context method. From six weeks to four months, at the beginning of the first grade, is usually required to give the child a mastery of the necessary vocabulary. This work should precede the use of a book; it should be conducted wholly by the aid of blackboard and chart. When this initial vocabulary is chosen with direct reference to the child's first book, it is possible to limit it to two hundred words, or even less, particularly when the first book has been prepared along the lines of the context method.

In exceptional cases the child of six years of age has learned to read at home, but in the great majority of cases the children, on their first appearance in school,

have only a spoken vocabulary and that is quite limited in range and full of imperfections, nevertheless, it is with this vocabulary that the children must begin their school work and it should be utilized to the fullest extent by the teacher. Moreover, the child's spoken vocabulary constitutes one of the strongest bonds between the home and the school and for this reason it should not be disturbed until the child has learned to feel quite at home in the school. After a week or two the teacher may proceed to correct imperfections in pronunciation and mistakes in the use of words, but in this she should proceed with great caution. The children must not be humiliated or made self-conscious, and above all there must be no implied correction of the home standards and no reflection upon the knowledge of the home group; in a word, the negative method, in this phase of the child's education, should be avoided with scrupulous care, for in addition to the usual dangers of this method there is here grave danger of injurying fundamental elements in the child's character and of weakening his respect for parental authority. If the teacher uses language correctly herself, and if she insists on the children using it correctly, there will be no need to call the attention of the school to a child's mistakes in pronunciation or in the use of words. Both of these defects will rapidly disappear if left alone.

Where English is the native language of the child, the teacher need not concern herself much with the task of increasing his spoken vocabulary; this will grow naturally and without apparent effort on her part, for in this field the context method is employed naturally by the teacher and by the children. Nor is the method limited to the schoolroom. The children, particularly when fortunately situated, enlarge and perfect their spoken vocabulary at home and on the playground.