Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1911. — 146 p.
The great success attending the publication of the " Pictorial French Course " (Barbier), and the " Pictorial German Course " (Baumann), and the favour with which they have been received by teachers all over the country, give me hope that publication of the "Pictorial Spanish Course," on exactly the same lines, will prove equally as welcome. The aim of this book is to give the learner the power of speaking in the foreign tongue in the most natural and interesting way. The Direct Method demands a teacher, and no book can pretend to do for the learner what a teacher can do. In the following pages, therefore, the author has not hesitated to modify the Direct Method to the extent necessary to make the work intelligible to the private student. After long experience of the use of Pictures as a means of suggesting subjects for conversations, the author makes no apology for their introduction to an extent not before attempted in books for older scholars, and in order that no unnecessary aid should be relied upon, the names of the objects are detached and numbers substituted. Although mainly written for class work, this modification makes the work specially suitable for learners studying without a teacher. The utter inadequacy of the Phonetic or imitated pronunciation method of representing strange sounds by stranger combinations of symbols, has long struck the writer as being wearisome and ineffective, to say the least. For those who are unable to obtain the services of a native teacher the author has consistently advocated the use of the Phonograph as the next best means, and the fact that thousands of phonographic language records are now being used by private students and even by teachers for their improvement of the pronunciation proves the utility of this mechanical device. The authors' " Hints to Teachers " on the teaching of Rees " Picture System," as well as all information regarding language records can be had on application to the publishers.