Streamlining College German

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THE drop in registration figures from the required second year of College German to the first elective literature course is popularly attributed by language teachers to the fact that nowadays no longer desire 'culture' and are not interested in any elective that requires effort. This is a convenient but erroneous explanation. Were it valid, foreign language literature courses would be filled with the pick of the undergraduate body, which is obviously not the case. While it is undeniable that contemporary events and current curriculum trends do affect the enrollment in language electives, the real reason why students drop foreign language work as soon as they have met the requirement is that most of them have found in it pitifully little to stimulate a longing for more-in other words, we have failed in the elementary and intermediate courses to provide for experience in richer living. Nor have the courses, as enrollment figures also show, contributed much that is really vital to student development. The fact is that language teachers, in clinging stubbornly to traditions, have failed to meet changing conditions. In former papers the writer has discussed some of the problems particularly germane to the first and second years?. The purpose of this article is to examine critically the typical first elective German literature course and to suggest changes that would make the aims and methods of the course consonant with progressive principles of education. Such a revision in the near future is imperative. In the typical first literature course we find a small group of sophomores and juniors, a few of whom have gone on with their language study because of some personal interest, most of whom, however, have continued either to satisfy some special requirement or else, philosophically assuming that all beginning is hard and sanguinely anticipating the greener pastures of an advanced course, to sample other wares of the department. The content almost invariably is based on the theory that the classics must be served. The elementary student of literature is to read Lessing, Goethe, and