honours in the coming Modern Languages Tripos at Cambridge, and more especially to those preparing to be teachers of German, not simply as a "practical" acquirement, but as a means of mental training. The earlier part of an organized course of study such as I have referred to will of course be chiefly occupied with the systematic acquisition of the elements of the language, its constituent parts and general principles, before the classical literature is seriously approached. At this stage the student's powers of attention and retention are fully claimed by the details of inflection and signification, of word-composition, construction and idiom. The matter of what he reads is of secondary importance, provided it be sufficiently light and interesting; what is first required is a fitting supply of the staple material of the language. Plain narrative and conversational prose will be better than any classic, even where the sole final purpose is a thorough study of the literature. Where however a practical mastery of the language, for the purposes of speaking and writing, is a substantial part of the student's aim, it becomes doubly requisite that he should at first confine himself, in the main, to the best contemporary authors. These should be made the object of a close analytical study, followed by careful recapitulation, to impress the results on the memory, and convert Wissen into Können, knowledge into faculty. No doubt the student will learn much, as some learn all that they ever know of a modern language, by a half intuitive observation and association, aided by the fixing power of habit,-what is called the "picking up" of a language. But it is upon a thorough mastery of a thousand and one small details and fine distinctions, peculiar modes of conception and expression, that the correctness and idiomatic character of the most ordinary conversation or of the plainest written style depend; and while these are the implicit and almost unconscious mental property of a native, they can be adequately acquired by a foreign student of the language only by a sustained exercise of analytic observation and thought. To a German Gymnasiast it might seem a waste of subtlety, or pedantic trifling, to analyse and formulate the uses of doch or ja, the difference between erst and nur, or the various phases of meaning combined in such words as wollen and mögen. But he would certainly hold other views with regard to μǹ or av, or the uses of the Greek optative; and if he undertook a careful study of English he would be grateful to any one (whom he would more probably find among his fellow-countrymen than among Englishmen) who could give him some theoretic hold upon the difference between "some" and "any," or the principles underlying the uses of "shall" and "will," or the forms "I think" and “I am thinking." It would indeed be untrue as well as useless to tell him that he might find in the analytic study of English as good a mental gymnastic as in that of Greek; but I do not think there would be much hardihood in maintaining that for the English youth the scientific study of a highly organized language like German may be made the medium of as thorough a mental training, and of as much real culture, as experience would lead us to expect in return for the same amount of time and labour devoted to the study of the "classical" languages. It is as in some sort an introduction to such a study of German as I have endeavoured to indicate, so far as this is possible under the limitations of a commentary on a given text, that the present volume has been prepared. The notes are numerous and copious, but I trust they will commend themselves as not of the kind that paralyse the student's own mental activity by superseding the necessity for it; but rather as stimulating it by presenting suitable material in a workable form, and furnishing guidance in such a way as to lead to future independence. The material has of course been supplied in the first place by the text itself. This has been to a small extent supplemented, but chiefly elucidated and illustrated, by matter drawn from sources many of them inaccessible to the English reader. A not inconsiderable element may lay some claim to originality, and perhaps this will be the most valuable part of the book to the real student, because treating from the objective standpoint of the foreigner, specially of the Englishman, matters of idiomatic difficulty upon which only scattered hints are to be found in sources English or German. I may refer particularly to the notes on the particles, on the exact force, as felt in the original, of words like erst, übrigens, vollends, &c., and of certain familiar but peculiar modes of conception and expression which are too completely ingrained in the consciousness of a native for him easily to make them the objects of analysis or of explanation to others. In the disposition of the material in the notes I have endeavoured, by constant quotation of parallel passages in the text, and by a complete system of references backwards and forwards, making the book as far as possible self-illustrative, to afford the student every facility for comparative analysis as the basis of generalisation. Even where, as is of course often the case, there is no room for any strict induction, it has been my aim to secure that no item of fresh knowledge shall lose anything it may gain by association with related matter already met with or shortly to be acquired. In no modern language, perhaps, is it more desirable than in German that the vocabulary should be presented, and in part acquired, in associated groups of cognates. As regards the form of the notes, I have endeavoured to offer to the student every inducement to work through the processes by which the results are obtained, before possessing himself of the results themselves, and to form for himself a method and habit of work based upon the same principle. The application of these results to the actual translation of the text he will find has been left largely to himself. I have made use of translation chiefly as strictly exegetical, or as pointing out and exemplifying typical modes of turning German idiom into English. Where renderings of connected passages of the text are given, these are not intended to be final, or to preclude the endeavours of the student to elaborate others freer in style, or better harmonising with the context of his own translation. I think that any one who works steadily through the book, in accordance with the plan upon which it has been arranged, can hardly fail to obtain an initial grasp of the language, as well as a training in method for future acquirements, such as no amount of mere desultory study could give. It need however hardly be said that some more cursory reading should be carried on in suitable proportion at the same time. Such reading, pursued alone, contributes little either to exact knowledge or to practical acquisition, but is very desirable as a relief from the severe monotony of close and deliberate study, and as giving flow and facility in the application of the knowledge acquired. While the book has been prepared, as already explained, for a special class, and with a special purpose, it is hoped that after a little practice in the selection of suitable notes and parts of notes, it may be used with ease and advantage by pupils belonging to the middle and higher forms of schools, and by students or readers whose time does not allow of, or whose purpose does not require, the close and systematic study for which it is specially designed. My warmest thanks are due to several friends, both in Germany and in England, for most valuable help and criticism. CAMBRIDGE, H. J. W. |