Only students who show unusual linguistic ability should, after two or three years' study of one language, be eligible to elect a second. Eligibility should be based on school record or some form of objective test administered on a citywide basis.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FOR COMMERCIALS. All students, with the exceptions noted above, should begin the study of a foreign language in the seventh year. Those who, at the end of the undifferentiated ninth year, choose to enter the commercial course or the vocational course, should not drop their foreign language. They should continue it with special emphasis on vocational or commercial phases (commercial correspondence, foreign shorthand, etc.).

SYLLABUS REVISION. We recommend that the Board of Superintendents appoint at once a Syllabus Revision Committee made up of chairmen and teachers to draw up a new foreign language syllabus which will meet the objectives of foreign language teaching as outlined above. As this will be an arduous and time-consuming task, the chairmen and teachers chosen for it should be allowed adequate teaching exemptions. This general syllabus should include special syllabi for commercial and vocational students.

NEW LANGUAGES. When the demand for a new language (Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, etc.) becomes sufficiently strong to warrant its introduction, one school should be chosen in a borough, to which all students wishing to take the language in question would go, without regard to zoning restrictions. If the demand should become sufficiently great, additional schools could be selected in one or more other boroughs.

THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL. We have recommended that foreign language study begin in the 7A grade of the junior high school. To make the teaching of languages more effective, we urge that conditions for both students and teachers in the junior high schools be raised to equal that of the senior high schools. More specifically we recommend the following:

Class Size: Average and maximum class size (30) should be the same for senior and junior levels. This is necessary for effective teaching with the aims outlined under "Objectives of Foreign Language Teaching."

Teaching Load: Junior high school teachers of language should teach five periods and have one "free" period as do the teachers of the senior high schools. The large amount of test material to be rated, time for special help for backward students, club activities, gathering, preparing and cataloguing realia, and other important extra-class activities make such a "free" period essential for the junior high school teacher.

Regents Examinations

We recommend the eventual abolition of all Language Regents for the following reasons:

1. As constructed at present they act as a strait-jacket on teaching content and teaching methods.

2. They lead to an overloading of the first two years with grammatical material.

3. Passing as many as possible becomes the objective of many language teachers. This leads to cramming and drilling for the Regents and the consequent neglect of some of the worthwhile aims of language teaching.

4. If we adopt "Objectives for Foreign Teaching" recommended above, the Regents examinations will be entirely inadequate as a testing medium unless completely revised. Past experience shows that such revision lags far behind changes in teaching methods and objectives.

We recommend the immediate abolition of the Two Year Regents. Such a step would make possible immediate syllabus revision in accordance with modern objectives and permit shift of stress in the first two years from reading to speaking and comprehending.

Instruction in the Army

ABRAHAM H. FRIEDMAN*

1st Lieutenant, Cavalry, Army of the United States

When I received the letter requesting me to write an article on some phase of army instruction that would be of interest to teachers, I shook my head in doubt. The aspects of training in such a gigantic structure as the Army are so varied and the problems of the

*Formerly teacher of Art in Evander Childs H. S.

instructor so many that I shall not confine myself to any one specific phase. Instead, I hope, in this essay, to convey the goals we strive for the means and methods available to us to achieve these aims.

I might also have compared civilian schooling with army instruction. Instead I leave those comparisons for the reader to make. He may be surprised to learn that the Army is a large progressive school and that progressive education is old stuff to us.

All the material in this article has been drawn from personal experience. Fortunately, I spent a number of years as a teacher in the school system. In addition to having attended various service schools throughout the country, I have, since my induction into service as a private, been either a student or an instructor. And never one or the other but always both concurrently. The young officer is told that in the Army one is always learning and teaching and he finds proof enough of this truth as he goes along in service.

WHAT ARE WE STRIVING FOR? The basic field manual on military training states that, "The ultimate purpose of all military training is the assurance of victory in the event of war." No statement can be clearer. We are working for victory and that means the defeat, absolute and utter, of Germany, Japan and their satellites. Nothing will bring this about but the complete annihilation of their armies. Wars are not won by attrition or the bombing of civilians. They are won by cold steel delivered aggressively in a critical area. We, in the Army, no longer rationalize or delude ourselves. We have read too many of the actual accounts and spoken with many of those who came back. We know, as perhaps no civilian can hope to know, that our enemies are just as cunning, just as intelligent, just as technically perfect, and perhaps more cruel and more savage than the average American soldier. Their training has been of the highest calibre. They spare no efforts in an attempt to make their soldiers battle-wise even before they get to the front. There are reserves, no doubt, who have been sent to combat with little more than basic training. Remember, however, that many of the men left are veterans of four years of continuous fighting and years of their so-called peace during which they were preparing. These people are innured to hardship and know now that they fight for existence.

It is our duty to be better than they. To be so much more proficient than the next guy is to have the jump on him. To the man

who has the scales tipped in his favor comes the final victory. If they are good, we must be better.

In addition to our main goal and leading to it, we seek to develop certain qualities in our soldiers. Among these are morale, discipline, health, strength and endurance, technical proficiency, initiative, adaptability, leadership, teamwork and tactical proficiency. Of these, the basic four are: technical proficiency, initiative, adaptability and leadership. All the others either stem from or are an integral part of them.

THE MEN. The American soldier is keen, intelligent, and eager to learn. He has that quality which probably few Axis soldiers possess the ability to carry through on his own when deprived of his leader. He is familiar with mechanical contrivances and is literate. The majority have had at least a grade school education and many have been to high school and college. The Army attempts by means of various examinations to put a man in a position where he can be of most value.

I have said that he is eager to learn. Motivation is our smallest problem. He realizes that his life depends on his knowledge of his profession. He has a burning desire to come back home. From a purely practical, as well as humanitarian standpoint, we want him to live and go on fighting. In the first World War, men may have been sent over who had little conception of how to use their own weapons. Today our Army is being trained to the utmost. Time is precious and we must make the most of it. At any moment we may be on a ship on our way to a landing. A moment wasted here may mean a life or lives later.

INSTRUCTORS. Every soldier is a potential instructor. By various teaching methods we seek to develop his ability to teach. Mainly, we draw our instructor body from the junior and non-commissioned officers. Good instruction demands a man who is professionally competent, alert, and interested in his subject. He must have a command of language, an ability to talk to his men at their own level. "Guts" is a much better word than "digestive tract” and conveys much more. The instructor must possess poise and dignity for only thus can he hope to gain and keep the respect of his men. He must know his subject and must never bluff. The soldier resents bluffing. The instructor who does so is tampering with a precious

commodity, a man's life. In addition, the instructor must display his ingenuity, his genius for invention in instruction. We work on a twenty-four basis. There is no time off as such in the Army.

SUPERVISION OF TRAINING. Training is a command responsibility. It is a function of command. This responsibility may be delegated all the way down to the squad corporal but the topmost general is made to answer for any lack. Training directives, doctrines, and principles come from high headquarters. The weekly schedules are made up in the lower units. Supervision is everpresent and instructors get ratings on their proficiency. The fate of many an officer's career depends on that rating. Merit not seniority is the basis for promotion.

The Army runs large schools through its various arms, and services. Divisions, regiments, and battalions conduct their own schools. But the most important of all are those conducted by the individual troop and platoon for these touch the lowest buck private in the Army.

STEPS IN TRAINING. Decentralization is the keynote of our training. After the individual soldier has made satisfactory progress, he becomes part of the squad which is then trained as such. The squad then works with the platoon, the platoon with the troop until, finally, in those large scale maneuvers you've read about, division is pitted against division, corps against corps, and army against army. But basically the most important member of all these units is still the individual soldier. On him depends the battle.

Unlike most civilian schools, we who are with the line outfits are often handicapped by lack of materials. Our school rooms are very often some quiet corner of a miasmal woods or the doubtful shelter of a windy, snowswept meadow; our blackboards and charts homemade affairs. During the past year or so, however, the Army has produced many fine films, film strips, and charts and has published hundreds of field manuals (our textbooks) on almost all the basic and many of the technical subjects.

The use of visual aids is stressed in all our instruction for we believe that 83% of all learning comes through the eyes. Since only a small part of training can actually be accomplished by devices supplied to us, we must construct the rest. The instructor in automotive subjects may take a disc of wood, a few buttons, and construct