International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1932)

— 780 — as I have always taken practicality into consideration during my experimental researches. The study of a foreign language and the methods and new systems it was my ntention to explain, as well as the notable pedagogic importance of such a system of teaching attracted me to the work, and induced me to consecrate myself to it. It was a difficult task, and I was aware of this from the very start, for not only did I not have the possibility of carrying out my researches in a photographic laboratory, but I realized that my knowledge of the technical and commercial aspects of the problem were very incomplete. I may add that I made every effort to acquire by means of theoretical researches the technical and practical notions that I lacked. Since, then, I have never been able to consolidate theory with practice I am obliged to ask indulgence of the reader if certain passages of this work dealing with technical questions are not set forth as a competent expert would detail them. I wish to be frank. It may be recognized that several defects of my work originate from the fact that this problem is being examined for the first time and I may therefore have good hopes for the value of my description. As will be seen from the material illustrated, I have intentionally contrasted the mother tongue with foreign languages. Although the ideas contained in this introduction cannot be considered as forming part of a systematic method of teaching, I do well, I believe, in dealing with them here. The comparative contrast of the mother tongue with a foreign language has so lengthy a history that it has already a certain scientific renown. Comenius, Rousseau, Diderot and Bassedow when dealing with the study of languages insisted on the comparative study of the mother tongue and a foreign language, and their deductions may be considered as being in agreement. Not only pedagogy, but also psychology has a notable part in these researches, because ever since man has been capable of reflection, he has worked at the problem of languages. In the course of studying them, it has been seen that the mother tongue only is strictly and inseparably connected with all our being, that our character is expressed through it, that it gives life to all sentiments and our intelligence, so that we really only think in our own mother tongue. Further, our mother tongue enters into both our conscious and subconscious being, and we even speak in it when we speak in dreams. I have therefore thought it desirable to utilize in this work the methods, and in part, the results of the psychology of the subconscious, in the hope that I may be able to illustrate things which up to now have never been said. In the chapter on the method of teaching, I have consecrated a lengthy section to phonetics, that is, to pronunciation. In this problem of the study of foreign languages, in itself complicated enough, the greatest difficulty lies, without doubt, in the pronunciation. In any case, the difficulty is one of method, for alphabets furnished with the most accurately chosen and studied phonetic indications can only be used by persons who have had occasion to hear the language under study actually spoken. I have sought to divide the pedagogic from the methodical problem. As to the educative value of foreign languages, enough has been said, and if I mention the matter again, it is to demonstrate better still how, thanks to my new method, it is possible to develop the conscience and the linguistic feeling even through the mother tongue. If