IS GRAMMAR REVIVING? Following a rebellion, some years ago, against the formalities of grammatical rules and drill, high schools throughout the country have experienced, or are experiencing, a period of composition instruction in which formal grammar is minimized or excluded. Is this type of instruction to continue? Or are we seeking a workable mean which will give us the best of both the "accuracy-first" and the "self-expression" theories of composition? To answer these questions in part (and at the same time TEACHING OF FORMAL GRAMMAR Shaded states are using more formal grammar than three or four years ago. Unshaded states are using less. to determine broadly the tendency in twelfth-year teaching of literature), a questionnaire was submitted, first, to each of the state high-school supervisors or inspectors, and second, to superintendents of representative cities in all states. The questionnaire follows: 1. In the ninth grade, is the tendency to teach more, or less, formal grammar? 2. In teaching grammar in the high school, is the tendency to use more, or less, diagramming? 3. What is the composition text most used in ninth-grade English? 4. Is American, or English, literature preferred in the twelfth grade? Or is the tendency toward a mixture of the two? 5. What biography and criticism text is adopted, or most widely used, for American literature? For English literature? The questionnaire was sent to one hundred sixteen supervisors and superintendents. The superintendent of at least one representative city in each state received the questions, and two or three city superintendents in such states as New York, Ohio, Texas, and California. Seventy-four, or sixty-four per cent, of the recipients returned answers to the questionnaire. Replies to the second and fifth questions indicate such a wide variety of textbook preference that the results are relatively indecisive. In general, Ward, Hitchcock, and Lewis and Hosic are most popular for ninth-year composition, according to questionnaire answers. For American and English literature the favorites were Long, Halleck, and Pace. The revival of grammar arises partly, it seems to me, from the dissatisfaction created by relying wholly upon the teaching of informal grammar. In the use of informal grammar we were teaching for the threefourths, or five-sixths, of ninth-year students who would not enter college, or need a very extensive technical knowledge of the language. But stand ards are rising. Both college and business demand a technical knowledge of English. We find often that more than half of our ninth-grade students afterward enrol for Freshman English in college, and discover themselves unable to translate the instructor's marginal corrections. For these corrections are made in grammatical terms which for them are frequently unrelated and scattered rather than related and interwoven. Formal grammar involves a step-by-step realization of word relationships, none of which is possible without a complete understanding of the preceding principle. The student's knowledge of grammar should compare favorably with his knowledge of arithmetic; it should be orderly, reasonable, easily classified. It is difficult, I think, to build such a knowledge for ninth-year students by the informal, or deductive, method. Years ago we taught a great deal of formal grammar and little paragraph writing with the hope that grammatical knowledge would eventually enable the student to write rhetorically as well as grammatically accurate sentences and paragraphs. When we found that this method not only failed of its object but prohibited the pupil's acquiring a language accent of his own, we began to teach a great deal of composition and little grammar. Of the two extremes the latter, most teachers believe, is more compatible with writing efficiency. We may now, however, begin to combine more widely the two methods, deductive correction of written paragraphs, and sure construction for the student of a workable grammatical science. D. M. WOLFE BELLEVUE HIGH SCHOOL ON THE VALUE OF SIDE-SHOWS IN THE It is a circus! I know it, and so do you; so do all wide-awake teachers, English ones especially. "Something doing" in the ring every minute, and there may be two rings or even three. The ringmaster of course is practically obsolete in all circuses nowadays, and you and I are ordinary performers, taking our turn among the rest. We still have in our ring, however, the daring riders who leap with the greatest ease through hoops fairly blazing with difficulties; the skilled trapeze performers and tightrope walkers who seem to you and me always on the verge of an ignominious fall, but who are never afraid to take a chance; and always, always the clowns. What dear fellows they are! And really, you know, it takes true skill to be a clever clown. So much, briefly, for the main circus, but what about the side-shows, and how do they help? Well, for side-shows I have in mind lesser activi ties, which may have little or no relation to the "big show," but which are to be encouraged because each one is a special source of interest or entertainment, and sometimes lures within the circus ground those who may feel that after a time the big shows grows tiresome. A girl or boy may have some special interest and would like to share it with others, even though it does not touch upon English at all. Give him a chance, and see how much more unconstrained and homelike the atmosphere of the schoolroom will become. I knew a teacher who helped a boy to bring his work from D up to A, simply because when she found that his principal interest was in "stones," as he called them, she opened up a neglected cabinet of dusty minerals in the school building, and encouraged him to bring his own specimens for comparison and classification. In my own experience I have found that, as a result of allowing all sorts of objects to be brought into my classroom, and even of bringing them in myself, the boys and girls who do not naturally care for English, the big show, come to feel that here is a place where side-shows are not despised, and they not only come themselves, but bring their friends. For example, the pictures placed on the bulletin board are not, as a whole, those relating to our literature study (those are usually passed about the class from hand to hand), but rather are they attractive colored prints of out-of-doors during the various seasons, or newspaper pictures of popular heroes, or of some beautiful building recently erected, and so on. One year the room was a popular rendezvous for pupils from all over the school, because a Senior, who after months of happy effort in the woodworking department, had completed a five-foot model yacht, had brought it to Room 124, and put it "on the ways" on the reading table. But the really special side-show is the famous menagerie, consisting at present of one hundred fifty small animals, arranged eight or ten abreast in a Big Parade across all the front of the large flat-topped desk, and just a bit down one side. Parents, publishers' agents, and other visitors upon first sight usually come to a standstill rather suddenly and inquire: "This is the high school, isn't it?" "Yes, indeed." "Oh! And what do you teach?" "English." "Oh! And may I ask how you correlate all those animals with your work?" And then comes the explanation, always the same, but never, ap parently, without interest to the visitor: "You see, it all came about in this way: Several years ago, when I received at Christmas a pen-wiper on which was mounted a tiny china dog, I decided to take it to school, thinking that in this way I might seem a little more human to my pupils. I introduced the pup as Fido, because he looked the part. Within a day or two, a girl appeared with a small black cat, 'to keep Fido company.' We decided, from sheer contrariness, to name pussy Snowball. Next a boy (now doing well at college) brought a wooden goat from a oncetreasured Noah's ark, and after that the game went merrily on, until now, as you see, I have in the menagerie one hundred fifty animals." This explanation usually satisfies. The visitors can see for themselves what I must explain to you, that the beasties are made of many substances, come from many lands, and vary in size from a tin rabbit one quarterinch long (found in a package of Cracker-Jack) to a wriggling snake of eight or ten inches and a wooden duck-contributed by one of the janitors-which is about four inches tall to the top of the head. This is really the largest creature in the collection. The janitor found it in a mudhole behind the school, scraped it, painted it a nice clean brown and yellow, and presented it with pride as the latest addition to the group. Not only pupils and janitors but teaching staff and parents have become interested, and remember the menagerie when on their travels. There are two wooden bears from Switzerland, a papier maché pig from Mexico, a brass pig from Ireland, a bird from France, and another from China. One of the town florists contributed an odd animal made of eucalyptus buds, with stem for tail and cloves for legs, and also a butterfly taken from his shop mirror, which clings to any surface when pressed. All these creatures have names, and a favorite pastime with some of my pupils, is to come in after school and see if I can give all the list— not so easy a task as it used to be. No animals are refused nor any proposed names scorned, for no donor's feelings must be hurt. One day a girl brought an infinitesimal black kitten, with raised tail and arched back, and I announced to my class: "Girls, Snowball has had a kitten in the night. What shall we name it?" Instantly a tall scout in the corner called out, "Mothball!" So Snowball and Mothball they will remain, until this particular side-show has moved on. Biological influence is shown in giving the name of Adam to an upright monkey clad in man's clothes. Two amusing wooden birds, with heads turned toward each other, are Toots and Casper. But our literary allusions are not always on that low level, for a belligerent-looking china rooster is named by a Longfellow-reading Freshman, Myles Standish "because he's a Plymouth Rock |