Hispania 1929-05: Vol 12 Iss 3

HISPANIA

Votume XII MAY 1929 Numser 3

ANTONIO MACHADO Y SUS SOLEDADES

Antonio Machado es, como Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, un sevillano
trasplantado a Castilla. Su padre, Antonio Machado y Alvarez,
gallego de origen, fue un espiritu culto, ingenioso en burlas contra
la religion, aficionadisimo al estudio ameno de la poesia y la sabi-
duria del pueblo expresadas en coplas, canciones, refranes y adivinan-
zas. De su familia fue también D. Augustin Duran, el compilador
insigne del Romancero incluido en la coleccién Rivadeneyra.

Nacié Antonio Machado en Sevilla en julio de 1875, un afio des-
pués que su hermano Manuel. A los nueve afios, en 1884, fue Ile-
vado a Madrid. La influencia de Andalucia, vivisima sobre su her-
mano, fue débil sobre él.

Mi infancia son recuerdos de un patio de Sevilla
Y un huerto claro donde madura el limonero,

dice él mismo en su “Retrato,” del libro Campos de Castilla; y en la
composicién cxxv de sus Poesias completas de 1917, habla mas pro-
lijamente de los recuerdos de su infancia.

En Madrid cursé los estudios del bachillerato en la Instituci6én
Libre de Ensefianza, bajo la direccién del buen pedagogo D. Fran-
cisco Giner de los Rios. Sobre la pesadez y el aburrimiento fatales de
sus afios de escuela (“Recuerdo infantil,” “Las moscas,” de Sole-
dades, galerias y otros poemas) se levanta la simpatica figura del
maestro que supo ganar con su bondad y su inteligencia el carifio
respetuoso del discipulo. A su muerte, en 1915, dijo de él Antonio
Machado, en versos de “Elogios” (Poesias completas) que habia sido
luz y alma en la vida sana y alegre del trabajo feliz.

En la composicién “Retrato,” ya citada, escribe suscintamente
Antonio Marchado que fueron, su juventud, “veinte afios en tierra
de Castilla,” y su historia, “algunos casos que no quiere recordar.”
Estos “casos” de su edad inquieta, que él calla asi, con discrecién jui-
ciosa y trasparente, ;qué pueden ser para nuestra natural suspicacia
sino las primeras aventuras de su corazén avido y prdédigo? Sin

225

226 HISPANIA
duda, como él lo asevera, no fue “ni un seductor Mafiara ni un
Bradomin”; pero, aun descuidado en el vestir, rasgo que repetida-
mente sefiala como suyo, amé “cuanto ellas pueden tener de hos-
pitalario,” y fue acendrando en sus amores pasajeros, seguramente
un poco o un mucho tristes puesto que pasaron, la emocién de su
alma, que sobrevivia a lo circunstancial y preparaba en vago enso-
fiamiento su obra futura de poeta.

Sus compafieros de entonces lo evocan siempre “misterioso y
silencioso,” como lo llama Rubén Dario. Su hermano Manuel lo
muestra hurafio, contestando con laconica brevedad “Por aqui hace
gente” al amigo que, en pleno verano, se resistia a cruzar la calle
para seguir andando por el lado en que “hacia sol.”

En diciembre de 1898 llegaba por segunda vez a Espafia Rubén
Dario. Habia estado antes, en 1892, para la celebracién del cuarto
centenario del descubrimiento de América. Lo habian acogido en-
tonces oficialmente, sin particulares atenciones, como a uno de los
tantos representantes de las republicas americanas, los mas eminentes
literatos de la época. Era ya el autor de Azul ..., estudiado por
D. Juan Valera en sus Cartas americanas ; pero aun no se le conocia en
aquel medio. Iba ahora con la gloria escandalosa de Prosas profanas
(1896). Espafia se hallaba sumida en la postracién de su derrota,
después de la guerra con los Estados Unidos. Sus grandes escritores
de mediados y fines del siglo XIX que aun vivian,— Ramon de Cam-
poamor, Juan Valera, José Maria Pereda, Benito Pérez Galdos,
Gaspar Nijfiez de Arce,—habian dado ya toda su produccién y los
mas estaban gastados. De los nuevos, sdlo Jacinto Benavente y
Ramon del Valle Inclan habian publicado cosa de importancia, —
Teatro fantastico (1892), Femeninas (1894), Gente conocida (1896),
Epitalamio (1897), La comida de las fieras (1898). En ese momento
Rubén Dario fue providencial; su obra, incomprendida, ridiculizada
por la gente de vieja escuela, conquist6é con su refinamiento, con su
riqueza, con su arte, el espiritu de la juventud ansiosa de vida y falta,
sin embargo, de orientacién y estimulo. En Prosas profanas admiré
ella una poesia que, sola, sin mas interés que su belleza rara, se bas-
taba a si misma. Esta fue para los malos discipulos una incitacién al
desarreglo ; para los buenos, como Antonio y Manuel Machado, como
Juan Ramén Jiménez, un ejemplo de liberacién y de trabajo original.

Se dice que Antonio Machado tuvo el cargo de vicecénsul de
Guatemala en Paris el afio 1900. En Paris residié entre 1905 y 1907,
y volvié a él, pensionado por el gobierno espafiol para hacer estudios

AnTONIO MacHapo y sus “SOLEDADES” 227

de filologia, en 1910. Pudo asi, desde su primer viaje, conocer de
cerca, directamente, el foco de la renovacién literaria que la poesia
de Rubén Dario habia iniciado en América y Espafia con sus libres
transcripciones modernistas. El Parnaso, rigido y solemne, habia
cedido ya, de tiempo atras, bajo la confusién de los decadentes y los
simbolistas, y desde 1901 se operaba una reaccién de serenamiento
y claridad, contra los desafueros de los innovadores. Frente a Rubén
Dario, parnasiano y decadente ambiguo, habia de revelarse Antonio
Machado como simbolista puro, extraordinariamente personal.

Entre 1899 y 1902 escribe Antonio Machado las composiciones
que publica, a principios de 1903, con el titulo de Géngora, Soledades,
en pequefio volumen de modesto aspecto. Gdngora, por su extremada
singularidad y tal vez por la misma general repulsion de que era
objeto, habia atraido la atencién de los nuevos escritores rebelados
contra la poesia corriente. La revista juvenil Helios provocaba con
su primer numero, en abril de 1903, un concurso de opiniones sobre
el autor de Polifemo, y en el tercero, Antonio de Zayas asociaba de
paso, a las antiguas Soledades, las recientes de Antonio Machado.

Sorprende el titulo de Géngora en los versos de Antonio Ma-
chado. Poco o nada tiene aparentemente del uno el otro poeta. Ape-
nas si pueden atribuirse en las nuevas Soledades a una vaga influencia
de Gongora, no muy caracterizada, algunas raras trasposiciones ver-
bales violentas' y el capricho de ciertas imagenes clasicas.? Los dos
poetas son, sin embargo, dificiles, y los dos trabajan exquisitamente
su obra. El titulo de Géngora en el libro de Antonio Machado no
puede ser mas que un emblema de actitud poética insdlita, de poesia
culta, refinada, singularisima.

2No citaba Rubén Dario al conspicuo poeta cordobés como arti-
fice supremo, en las palabras liminares de Prosas profanas? El mismo
Verlaine, en los origenes obscuros de sus tendencias reformistas, con
esa ingenua inconsciencia de quien no siempre sabe lo que hace, habia
elegido un verso de Gongora para epigrafe de un poema saturniano.
Géngora, vilipendiado e incomprendido, era un estandarte resplande-
ciente de guerra contra la oficial literatura imperante en la irrupcién

1 Sofiada en piedra contorsién cefiuda (“La fuente”); No tu sandalia el
sofioliento Ilano Pisara ... (“Quiz4s la tarde lenta todavia”); Suave de rosas
aromado aliento (“Mai pi”).

2... su lanza térrido blande el viejo Verano (“Horizonte”).

Aljaba negra: los ojos. Oro de aljaba: la flecha del amor (“Arde en tus ojos
un misterio, virgen y Campo”).

228 HISPANIA

del modernismo dentro de Espafia. Bastaba que no fuera del gusto
consagrado para que los innovadores, sin estudiarlo ni conocerlo
mayormente, lo adoptasen y ensalzaran. Era una arma de ataque,
fulminante y ruidosa, que trastornaba las inteligencias: las circun-
stancias lo imponian. Esto, con todo, es lo de menos en el caso de
Antonio Machado.

Ni éste fue nunca un prosélito fervoroso a quien ciegamente
arrastrase el entusiasmo sectario ; ni tomo para si el titulo de Gongora
sin mas razon que el prurito de singularizarse con esa afiliacion pro-
vocativa. Tan bien esta el nombre de Soledades en la obra de Antonio
Machado como en la de Géngora. Gdngora, que es extravagante,
pintoresco, espléndido, convierte las soledades agrestes y costefias en
tema de contraste para el lucimiento culterano; Antonio Machado,
que es reconcentrado y meditativo, canta su intimidad solitaria, sus
desolaciones y monotonias interiores, los humorismos de su pensa-
miento. Una seccién del libro se llama “Del camino”; tanto daria
que se llamase “Del corazén,” porque esta hecha con la reflexién
nostalgica, sentimental, de lo que el poeta anhela y no ha encontrado
mas que en sombras o imagenes y en suefios. El nombre Soledades
tiene para los versos de Antonio Machado la misma acepcion espiri-
tual que Solitudes en la poesia de Sully-Prudhomme.

j Soledades! 3;No hay en esta palabra esa misma dulce melan-
colia de ausencia que llaman “saudade” los portugueses? La “sau-
dade” es tristeza de amor por el bien que se ha perdido; la soledad
puede serlo también por el que no se alcanzé nunca, y es éste el sen-
tido impreciso, la significacion vaga, del titulo que did Antonio Ma-
chado a sus poesias. Todo es melancolia en ellas, una melancolia que
él suele calificar de amarga, pero que en el lector produce casi siem-
pre una impresién suave, leve, aérea, porque se da sin objeto, sin
causa externa, como una emanaci6én natural del espiritu entregado al
ensuefio. El sentimiento de esta poesia triste, mas que dolor, es
languidez exquisita, deliquio del ser en la ilusién voluntaria, ante la
realidad hostil o indiferente. Siente el poeta con emocidén delica-
disima su propio aislamiento intimo, y una impresionabilidad extrema,
sin correspondencia ni armonia posible con las cosas del mundo y
de la vida, se resuelve en adoloramiento y en pena, y es ella misma,
sola y pura, la esencia de la poesia de Antonio Machado, que en eso
tiene mucho de efecto musical. Como la emocién que la misica sus-
cita, ella arranca del sentimiento desnudo, sin drama ni herida; es
como una repercusién o resurreccién del sentimiento que antes nacié

Antonio Macuapo y sus “SOLEDADES” 229

de la vida y que después renace o persiste independiente de las ocu-
rrencias que lo originaron.

Toda es melancolia, y toda es irrealidad, vision quimérica, suefio
de imagenes sin consistencia, la poesia en Soledades. El mismo poeta
dira después que

De toda la memoria slo vale
El don preclaro de evocar los suefios.
—‘“Y podras conocerte recordando”

Los suefios estan hechos siempre con las figuras de las cosas
reales ; pero en las figuras de los suefios pierde la realidad su resis-
tencia a la accién del espiritu. En la poesia de Antonio Machado todo
lo que es imagen o figura de lo real se transforma en signo o expre-
sién de su alma.

Abundaban los paisajes en la primera edicién de Soledades ; en la
segunda son eliminados algunos y corregidos otros, mientras todas
las demas composiciones, — menos una, — con ligeras y escasas mo-
dificaciones, — una o dos apenas, — permanecen definitivamente en
el libro. Los paisajes fueron seguramente los primeros ensayos del
autor; por eso, como en trabajos de prueba, repite con desarrollos
diversos el mismo asunto (“La tarde en el jardin, La fuente, Tarde”),
—o lo rehace en oposicién (“El mar triste, La mar alegre”), y por
eso también, cuando ha logrado el tipo de poesia que mas conviene a
su originalidad, — las breves notaciones liricas Del camino, — acaba
por desechar aquellas tentativas abortadas y cultiva y desenvuelve ese
otro procedimiento mas personal, mas suyo.

No hay como un resabio de la Sinfonia en gris mayor de Rubén
Dario en la acentuacién violenta, con reverberaciones metalicas en el
colorido, de El mar triste y La mar alegre?

Palpita un mar de acero de olas grises ...
Sobre el mar de acero
Hay un cielo de plomo ...
El rojo bergantin es un fantasma
Que el viento agita y mece el mar rizado,
El fosco mar rizado de olas grises.
—“El mar triste”

El mar hierve y rie
Con olas azules y espumas de leche y de plata ...
La gaviota palpita en el aire dormido ...

—“La mar alegre”

230 HISPANIA

La posicién de Antonio Machado respecto de Rubén Dario puede
apreciarse con toda exactitud en los primeros versos de su obra. Son
dodecasilabos de hemistiquios, como los versos de “Era un aire
suave,” los primeros también de Prosas profanas: Parece como que
Antonio Machado se hubiera complacido en tratar su tema predilecto
repetido tantas veces, — el mismo de “La fuente,” de “Never more”
y de “La tarde en el jardin,” — en ese metro, y en abrir de este modo
su libro, para que resaltara mejor, en el ritmo del maestro, su propia
originalidad personal y su independencia. Nada mas opuesto, en
efecto, que “Era un aire suave” y “Tarde”: “Era un aire suave” es
una descripcién pictdrica, brillante, sensual, de la belleza mundana,
elegante, decorativa; esta hecho de lujo y artificio; su nota saliente
es la risa de la coqueteria graciosa y de la seduccion perversa; es la
poesia de la carne sabiamente ataviada para el pecado. En contra-
posicién a todo esto, esboza Antonio Machado un cuadro somero de
paisaje solitario y apacible. La composicién entera del cuadro cabe
en los cuatro versos de una estrofa:

Fue una clara tarde, triste y sofiolienta,
Del lento verano. La hiedra asomaba
Al muro del parque, negra y polvorienta ...
Lejana, una fuente riente sonaba.

Poco agregara del mundo fisico a esta visién sencilla el autor:
sdlo dos impresiones genuinamente suyas: la sombra de los mirtos
sobre el cantar de la fuente y, en el espejo del agua, la imagen de las
frutas bermejas y doradas que penden sobre ella.

La voz del agua llama al poeta a la distancia, con la atraccién de
un misterio presentido en su monotonia cantora; entra él al parque
solitario ; tras él la puerta

Golpeé el silencio de la tarde muerta.

Algo parece que dijera la fuente: ;no habla en ella un recuerdo im-
preciso, olvidado, que empieza a despertarse, que se remueve emba-
razado, obscuro, sin llegar a definirse? Sabe el poeta que

Fue una tarde lenta del lento verano,

y siente que el mismo rumor que el agua tiene ahora suena dentro de
él, en remoto olvido:

Yo sé que es lejana la amargura mia
Que suefia en la tarde de verano vieja;

ANTONIO MacHapo y sus “SOLEDADES” 231

pero no logra evocar en su memoria el recuerdo perdido, que sin
embargo, palpita en aprension vaga ante la fuente:

Fue una clara tarde del lento verano ...
Tu venias solo con tu pena, hermano;
Tus labios besaron mi linfa serena

Y en la clara tarde dijeron tu pena.
Dijeron tu pena tus labios que ardian:
La sed que ahora tienen, entonces tenian.

Y el poeta abandona el parque, y otra vez, tras él, la puerta

Soné en el silencio de la tarde muerta.

El paisaje, en estos versos, por efecto de la técnica, se ha tras-
mutado en apariencia espectral, quimérica, ilusa. ;Qué es el parque
cerrado? qué es la fuente de monotonia? ; qué los cantares del agua
a la sombra de los mirtos, y las frutas doradas en el espejo de la
fuente? Todo se ha hecho ideal, aéreo, impreciso, en el magico en-
canto de la evocacién espiritual. Es la emocién del poeta, una emo-
cién de melancolia sin causa presente, lo que informa y rige ese
espectaculo ilusorio. Ella hace lento al verano, y vieja y muerta a la
tarde; ella es quien golpea el silencio. Un arte sutil insinta en las
cosas materiales cierta significacién de simbolo. La sola repeticién
de las calificaciones y de las frases basta para que imperceptiblemente
se produzca una sugestién de transcendencia. No puede el lector re-
ferir la escena que se le presenta a la realidad: todo en ella es leve,
ligero, inconsistente, como figuracién de ensuefio. Es la creacion
fantastica de una melancolia rara y compleja. No sabe el poeta a qué
atribuirla y se interroga vanamente sobre su origen: no proviene de
ningtin suceso particular; esta en él sin embargo; ajena a toda ocu-
rrencia, es como el agua de la fuente, que mana con un cantar pe-
renne, monotono, falta de sentido. Es la melancolia de un corazén
que vive en suefios, extrafio al mundo que lo rodea, como en el vacio.
Por eso el agua es para el poeta un simbolo de su propio sentimiento,
y contempla en ella, como en un espejo, la imagen de las frutas en
vez de buscar éstas en el arbol que las sustenta y ofrece.

Toda la poesia de Antonio Machado esta llena de estas impre-
siones del agua quieta o fluyente, silenciosa o murmuradora, y de las
imagenes de las cosas reflejadas sea en espejos reales o en la misma
agua. Es que para él, en Soledades, no hay mas verdad, mas vida,
mas posibilidad que la voluntaria ilusién, sin engafio, del mundo que

232 HISPANIA

lleva dentro de si. Esta condenado a vagar preso en el laberinto del
suefio (“Cenit”), desdefioso de la sombra del sendero y del ague del
mesén (“Quizas la tarde lenta todavia”), indiferente a las flores que
halla a su paso (“Me dijo un alba de la primavera”), errante “en los
caminos sin camino” o perdido en el desierto sin rumbo.

El mismo poeta ha definido exactamente su actitud en la ultima
composicién de la parte mas original de su libro, la titulada “Del
camino.” Cuesta y duele poner en mala prosa la delicadisima esencia
de esa poesia hecha de cosas impalpables que se resisten a la rudeza
de la expresi6n vulgar. El poeta se ve en un “retablo de suefios,”

Siempre desierto y desolado y solo,
como una
.. pobre sombra triste
Sobre la estepa o bajo el sol de fuego,
O sofiando amarguras
En las voces de todos los misterios ;

y llega a dudar si son verdadera, sinceramente suyas las lagrimas que
vierte. Es él realmente “ese fantasma de su suefio”? zes la suya la
voz que suena en sus versos, 0 es tan sdlo una voz de “histri6n gro-
tesco”? Suyos, intimamente suyos, son los suefios cristalinos que él

cuaja en honda gruta; pero el dolor y el llanto que nacen de ellos
gson acaso verdaderos ?

; Oh, yo no sé — dijo la Noche, — amado,
Yo no sé tu secreto,

Aunque he escuchado, atenta, el salmo oculto
Que hay en tu coraz6n, de ritmo lento,

Y aunque he visto vagar ese, que dices,
Desolado fantasma, por tu suefio.

Yo me asomo a las almas cuando Iloran,
Y escucho su hondo rezo,

Humilde y solitario,

Ese que llamas salmo verdadero;

Pero, en las hondas bévedas del alma,

No sé si el Ilano es una voz o un eco.
Para escuchar tu queja, de tus labios,

Yo te busqué en tu suefio,

Y alli te vi vagando en un borroso
Laberinto de espejos.

Esta incertidumbre sobre la calidad, sobre la sinceridad, del pro-
pio sentimiento se repite en varias paginas del libro, como si fuera

Anton1io Macuapo y sus “SOLEDADES” 233

constante en el autor ; asi, en “El poeta,” de la segunda edicién, donde
resume y concentra su pensamiento acerca de la situacién de aquél, —
la suya, por lo tanto, — en la vida, escribe que él acaba por sentirse

Un corazén que bosteza
Y un histrién que declama.

Ante semejantes palabras hay que precaverse juiciosamente con-
tra el engafio facil de una ligera interpretacién falsa. Entender que
Antonio Machado se confiesa llanamente insincero supondria negarse
a toda noble inteligencia con torpe ceguedad. No dice él que no siente
su poesia, sino que, sintiéndola y dandose todo a ella, que es una pura
creaciOn ideal, se pone fuera del orden comun y vive en facticia y
consciente ilusion. Su corazén bosteza a la grosera insuficiencia de la
realidad ordinaria para satisfacerlo, y refugiado en el suefio, no puede
menos que sufrir por momentos una amarga aridez interior cuando
advierte que vive espiritualmente en las emociones que él mismo se
procura con la poesia imaginaria de lo que no existe.

Y no es verdad, dolor, yo te conozco:
Tu eres nostalgia de la vida buena,
Y soledad de corazén sombrio ... *

Nostalgia, soledad. ;No son estos dos sentimientos la doble
fuente de toda la poesia sentimental? En la soledad se le hace sen-
sible al poeta lo que le falta; en la nostalgia él vuelve con amor y
tristeza a las cosas disipadas que fueron su dicha. Lo no encontrado
0 lo perdido, lo que no es o lo que, se existe, no sera nunca suyo, no
tiene otros motivos la poesia de Antonio Machado. Puede también
decirse que de ellos dimand siempre toda melancolia poética. En
Antonio Machado esta ausencia de objeto en la excitacién emotiva
adquiere un sello de modernidad que la distingue y originaliza. El no
resuelve el sentimiento en grandes ideas; no razona, con el clasico
gusto del lugar comin, sobre la suerte humana y su instabilidad en
la fortuna propicia, ni sobre otro cualquiera de los temas acostum-
brados en la antigua poesia. Tampoco trasporta su impresién sensi-
tiva a un tragico apasionamiento romantico. Ni amplias y altas ideas
generales, ni pasién desencadenada; se encierra en la pura fruicion
estética, en una fruicién tranquila, cerebral, rica de sensibilidad y
reflexion. El se complace, con la delectacién sutil de un espiritu
lucido y agudo, en sentirse sentir y en pensar lo que siente. Con celo

8 De la segunda edicién.

234 HISPANIA

cuidadoso elige y compone sus impresiones: depura y arregla segun
su temperamento las que la naturaleza y la ocasiOn le ofrecen, y busca
y provoca las que sdlo puede él mismo darse.

Nunca abandona su espiritu a una realidad exterior; nunca se
entrega a la vida. Replegado sobre su corazén, puede lamentar y
lamenta constantemente su aislamiento; pero no por eso lo rompe.
Su actitud acostumbrada es la de quien contempla en si mismo un
recuerdo o un ensuefio. Cuando mira hacia fuera, parece que su
vision desmaterializa la forma de las cosas. Frecuentemente, con el
deliberado propdésito de presentarlas despojadas de su corporeidad,
como si quisiera conservar de ellas el solo aspecto o la figura sin
consistencia, las exhibe reflejadas en el agua o en el cristal de un
espejo, vistas a través de los vidrios o visillos de las ventanas o dis-
tantes y encuadradas en el marco de puertas y balcones:

Tras la cortina de mi alcoba, espera
La clara tarde bajo el cielo puro ...
—‘Never more”
La tarde, tras los himedos cristales,
Se pinta, y en el fondo del espejo...*
—“El viajero”
Ella abre la ventana, y todo el campo
En luz y aroma entra ...
—‘“Es una forma juvenil que un dia”
Tras la tenue cortina de la alcoba
Esta el jardin envuelto en luz dorada ...
—“Los suefios’”*

En la naturaleza gusta de la quietud, de la sombra, del silencio, que
le dan misterioso encanto espiritual :

Bajo la paz, en sombra, del tibio huerto en flor ...
—“Preludio”*
Parques en flor y en sombra y en silencio ...
—‘Sobre la tierra amarga’’*

El viento que pasa y lleva perfumes o mueve los Arboles con alas
invisibles lo embarga y suspende como en pasmo atdénito:

Llamé a mi coraz6n, un claro dia,
Con un perfume de jazmin, el viento ...
; El viento de la tarde
Sobre la tierra en sombra! ...
—“Los arboles conservan”*

ue

ANTONIO MacHapo y sus “SOLEDADES” 235

j El viento de la tarde en la arboleda! ...
—“‘Humedo esta bajo el laurel, el banco’”’*

El agua — ya lo hemos indicado — tiene para él un hechizo particu-
larisimo. En la pila, en la fuente, en el rio, en el mar; por su claridad
y trasparencia, por su forma indefinida, vaga; por su virtud especu-
lar, por su quietud de recogimiento, por su incesante fluir, por su
murmullo de oracién, por su reposado silencio, es la imagen viva de
su espiritu ensimismado. No hay que buscar ejemplos de estas im-
presiones: el libro entero esta Ileno de ellas en todas de sus paginas.
Antonio Machado, en Soledades, no es un paisajista, aunque repe-
tidamente recuerde los lugares, las estaciones — sobre todo la prima-
vera y el verano, —y el alba y el creptsculo; sdlo toma del paisaje,
con sabio tino, los elementos capaces de exaltacién lirica; asi dice:

Lejos de tu jardin quema la tarde
Inciensos de oro en purpurinas llamas
Tras un bosque de cobre y de cenizas ...

Quizas la tarde lenta todavia
Dara inciensos de oro a tu plegaria ...

Sonrie al sol de oro
De la tierra de un suefio no encontrada ...

—“El viajero”

Indiferente a la realidad inmediata, sdlo puede ilusionarse con lo
que no esta a su alcance: sus quimeras “hacen camino ... lejos” (“So-
bre la tierra amarga”); “lejos, la sombra del amor lo aguarda”
(“Campo”), y él quisiera

Tener algunas alegrias ... lejos,

Y poder dulcemente recordarlas.
—“Tarde tranquila, casi”

Agua, espejos, voces, perfumes, sombras, ilusiones lejanas; asi
esta hecha la poesia de Antonio Machado en Soledades, con lo mas
ligero, con lo mas tenue y vago. En ella todo es inaprensible, etéreo,
como los fantasmas de los suefios. Ella no es verdaderamente mas
que el suefio de una sombra. El poeta sdélo quiere y persigue en la
vida una embriaguez voluntaria de sonacién sentimental :

.. Nosotros exprimimos
La penumbra de un suefio en nuestro vaso ...
—“Crear fiestas de amores”

# De la segunda edicién.

ores

236 HISPANIA

Por eso dice a la mujer amada:

De tu mirar de sombra
Quiero llenar mi vaso ...
—‘Inventario galante”

Por eso, cuando llora su juventud, que pasé como “una quimera,” no
recuerda haberla vivido, sino haberla sofiado:

j Juventud nunca vivida,
Quien te volviera a sofiar !
—‘La primavera besaba”

Ese alejamiento de si en que Antonio Machado abandona el
cuerpo de las cosas, para aislarse mejor en la emocidn pura, con la
sola imagen de ellas, obra de igual modo en su amor, con la mujer
querida, que no es nunca en sus versos mas que una sombra o fan-
tasma de belleza y de misterio. Vano seria el intento de entrever
siquiera en sus poesias, con alguna claridad, la fisonomia de la amada
que las inspira. Enteramente simbolica es la vision “pasajera,” “fugi-
tiva,” que él persigue, de la virgen que tiene en la boca “la alegria de
los campos en flor” y que se pierde en el viejo bosque a la carrera
de sus piernas “silvestres,” de “agiles musculos rosados” (“La vida
hoy tiene ritmo”). Menos viva, mas del alma, toda ilusoria, como
formada en las nieblas de un recuerdo que de pronto se precisa, es
la sombra que se le “aparece en la bendita soledad,” cuando siente
que desde el fondo quieto de su vida apagada le refluye una onda al
corazon y con ella le vuelve al labio “la palabra quebrada y temblo-
rosa” (“En la desnuda tierra del camino”).

Dejemos ya de lado esas criaturas quiméricas del ensuefio y bus-
quemos las que son o parecen de carne y hueso en el mundo personal
de este poeta. ;Es real o imaginaria esa que él invoca en el portico
del templo? Sin duda es real para los otros, puesto que los mendigos
harapientos del atrio han podido verla entre ellos; sin embargo para
el poeta no es mas que “una ilusién velada” que pasa en la serenidad
luminosa de la mafiana fria, con la mano, que semeja una rosa blanca,
sobre la negra tunica (“j; Oh figuras del atrio, mas humildes!’’). Evi-
dentemente su existencia no es mas definida que la nube remota o el
perfume que se disipa en el aire. He aqui ahora una mujer verda-
dera. Siempre la sorprende el poeta en ademan de esconderse o ale-
jarse, mal recatado en el manto negro “el desdefioso gesto de su
rostro palido.” Nada sabe de ella; pero piensa que sus parpados

no

ANTONIO MacHapo y sus “SOLEDADES” 237

cierran suefios impenetrables, y lo fascina con tragica angustia el
misterio de su actitud recelosa y esquiva. Un deseo apenado, triste,
de romper esa clausura dolorosa lo conmueve hondamente, y su ter-
nura desbordante se condensa y derrama en efusién de piedad inutil :

Besar quisiera la amarga,
Amarga flor de tus labios.
—*“Siempre fugitivo y siempre”

Y esto es todo: la mujer se habra perdido en el secreto inviolable de
su vida aparte, y de ella quedara en el poeta sdlo el vacio que ella no
acerté a llenar. “Esquiva” la llama él en sus versos. “Esquiva” llama
también, con el mismo sentimiento de imposible correspondencia in-
tima, a la virgen que, unida a él, lo acompafia inseparablemente. La
siente distante a su lado, aunque es parte de su propia vida; porque
esta, a pesar de todo, fuera de su corazon y es otro ser con otra alma.
Juntos los dos, como si una barrera insalvable los apartara, ella sera
siempre el enigma celado a la ansiedad exigente de abierta comunién
que alienta en su pecho. 3 Por qué, si estas en mi, no estas conmigo?
preguntaba a su amada otro poeta. El autor de Soledades invertiria
los términos de esa queja para lamentar que, hasta en el acompafia-
miento mas constante y seguro, sea imposible siempre la fusidn com-
pleta. Ni aun sabe si es amor 0 es odio el fuego que mira en los ojos
amados, y duda si es la mujer quien enciende y alimenta su amor o
tan solo quien ha de aplacarlo y consumirlo:

iEres la sed o el agua en mi camino?
—“Arde en tus ojos un misterio, virgen”

é Qué puede ese amor del poeta por la mujer que pasa envuelta en
el doble misterio de su expresién hurafia y de su existencia ignorada
y errabunda, o ese otro de la mujer que lo acompafia y es igualmente
impenetrable? No es el grande amor de la pasién que ciega y arre-
bata; no es tampoco el carifio sereno y dulce de la unién sosegada y
estable. Amor de lo desconocido e inasequible, amor de la ilusidén,
del ensuefio; soledad fatal del corazén angustiado y triste que se
consume en exaltacién estéril, como el agua de la fuente, que se
levanta al aire, al cielo, a las estrellas, para caer sobre si misma.
Muchos afios después, recordando a su esposa muerta, con el tragico
sentimiento de su viudez solitaria y nostalgica, habra de exclamar
Antonio Machado:

; Oh soledad, mi sola compajfiia !
—“Los suefios dialogados,” Nuevas Canciones

238 HISPANIA

y mas tarde atin, siempre igual en el mismo pensamiento sobre la
incomunicabilidad intima de las almas, repetido esta vez con densa
amargura filoséfica apenas disimulada en la ironia de la expresion
abstrusa, dira que el amor no es mas que ansiedad, vacio, ausencia:

... compafiia
Tuvo el hombre en la ausencia de la amada.
—“Al gran Cero,” Cancionero Apécrifo

El poeta piensa el amor y la amada, y los disuelve en imagina-
ciones y melancolias. Esa constante disposicién de su animo, que es
desasimiento de la realidad y vagueacién soledosa del amor y la
mujer, da a su poesia una condicion peculiar de cosa imprecisa, in-
aprensible, vaga, aérea.

Como las canciones en los “labios nifios,” segtiin sus propios
versos, la poesia de Antonio Machado tiene clara la pena de una
historia confusa, por

.. algo que pasa
Y que nunca llega.

Es poesia sin “historia,” sin fabula, canto sin cuento. Cuando por
excepcionalisimo caso refiere algun acaecimiento, lo hace con las mas
ligeras indicaciones y en los términos caprichosos de una invencién
puramente imaginaria ; asi, en “Abril florecia” y en “Fantasia de una
noche de Abril.” Comitinmente evoca imagenes dispersas e inconexas
de cosas remotas o inasequibles y con ellas despierta una blandura
interior melancdlica o nostalgica. Ella es siempre la efusién de un
sentimiento delicado que se acompafia con visiones de ensuefio. Nada
le es mas extrafio que el razonamiento y la imitacion de la realidad,
cualquiera que ésta sea. Nunca expone, a lo menos directamente,
ideas, ni desenvuelve cuadros o escenas. Enuncia apenas su tema;
procede por sugestiones rapidas y breves ; mas que a las impresiones
que da, confia su efecto a los prolongamientos, a las resonancias, a
las repercusiones de ellas en el espiritu. Tras las apariencias leves de
sus mirajes fantasticos se extiende y ahonda el sentido en sutiles
emociones y pensamientos difusos.

Para esto le ha sido necesario a Antonio Machado crearse un
estilo dificil de personalisima originalidad. Nadie entre los poetas
espafioles de su tiempo se parece a otros menos que él en su manera
de escribir. Buscarle maestros o antecesores en la forma que ha
hecho suya seria empefio inutil. No es eco, es voz, y con Ilana

~

-~ nD

~ wm

rH r* fF fF wT GS

-

Antonio MacHapo y sus “SOLEDADES” 239
sencillez, sin desplantes Ilamativos, lo ha insinuado varias veces. En
su “Retrato” dice:

A distinguir me paro las voces de los ecos,
y escucho solamente entre las voces una.

2 No alude asi a la fuente clara de las palabras virginales que dan a
su poesia un tono propio inconfundible?

El secreto de su poesia consiste en trasponer a las imagenes de
belleza recogidas en el mundo o inventadas una significacién de cosa
espiritual indefinida que mece y aduerme el alma en el sentimiento
de una soledad inquebrantable. Su poesia da siempre una impresioén
de separacién, de alejamiento, de aspiraciOn inasequible o pérdida
irreparable. El objeto de su ansiedad existe sdlo en el suefio para su
corazon, o pasa distante, apenas entrevisto nebulosamente, vedado a
todo acercamiento. Todas sus composiciones plafien con tristeza dulce
esta ausencia amorosa. La tarde que desmaya, el creptisculo encen-
dido en ascuas de incienso, el alba timida y suave, el camino solitario,
el agua que susurra o canta, que brota y corre o se esta inmovil en
reposo de reflexion, la flor humilde que sonrie entre las hierbas con
sus colores vivos, todo remueve en el poeta una emocién que efunde
con deseos sin esperanza o con impresiones de recuerdos y se pierde,
vaga y melancdlica, en el silencio de su ternura incomunicable.

La expresién del poeta es clara, nitida, ligera, para las apariencias
de gracia delicada que solicitan su atencién ; ella consiente a lo mas,
en muy contadas ocasiones, algun hipérbaton desusado y aquel modo
antiguo que impuso y divulgé la escuela clasica, de referirse a las
cosas con rodeos y perifrasis de compuesta elegancia. Parece que el
poeta, segin su propio consejo, quisiese matar sus palabras para
escuchar mejor su “alma vieja.” Sin duda pueblan sus versos inciertas
formas femeninas y en ellos cantan la primavera y Abril, la naturaleza
y la fuente; pero todo se disipa de pronto y queda sola, vibrante en el
ritmo apagado y lento de las palabras desvanecidas, la quejumbre del
corazon lastimado.

Las composiciones de Antonio Machado en Soledades son todas
breves, como lo exigia para la mas pura exaltacién lirica el agudo
tino de Edgar Allan Poe. Dos o tres estrofas libres de cuatro o cinco
versos le bastan generalmente.

Su métrica es apenas algo mas complicada que la de Gustavo
Adolfo Bécquer. Gusta como él de la combinacién facil del endecasi-
labo y el pentasilabo asonantados. Usa también los versos de ocho,

240 HISPANIA

siete y seis silabas. Para algunas de sus mejores poesias emplea el
dodecasilabo de hemistiquios.

No es un versificador revolucionario. Sdlo pueden sefialarse unas
pocas innovaciones suyas. Fue el primero en mezclar algunos raros
versos de trece silabas a los de once. Probablemente bajo la inspira-
cién de su maestro D. Eduardo Benot, ha versificado con pies trisila-
bicos y combinado los de acentuacién en segunda y en tercera (“Fan-
tasia de una noche de Abril,” “El sol es un globo de fuego,” “La mar
alegre”). Ha terminado estrofas regulares, de versos Ilanos rimados,
con un verso agudo sin rima (“Fantasia de una noche de Abril’’), y
con el mismo procedimiento, pero en estrofas irregulares, ha cerrado
los periodos ritmicos, con un verso agudo (“La mar alegre’). Por
capricho o tal vez por mera casualidad, ha compuesto versos de ritmo
doble 0 equivoco:

Detén el paso, belleza
Esquiva, detén el paso.
Besar quisiera la amarga,
Amarga flor de tus labios.

Detén el paso,

Belleza esquiva,
Detén el paso.
Besar quisiera

La amarga, amarga,
Flor de tus labios

En lo mas original y caracteristico de su obra, prefiere, a la rima
cambiante de la consonancia perfecta, la musica apagada, muelle,
uniforme de la asonancia sostenida en repeticion continua.

En 1907, a los cinco afios de publicadas por primera vez Sole-
dades, aparecié una edicién nueva con el titulo Soledades, galerias y
otros poemas. En sus Pdginas escogidas expone el poeta que nada
es substancialmente distinto a sus composiciones anteriores en las que
entonces agregé a su libro. Es mucho tiempo cinco afios para la
mentalidad inquieta de un espiritu fino entre sus veinte y siete y sus
treinta y dos afios. Sin duda el poeta es el mismo, pero algo ha
cambiado puesto que desecha de su obra algunas de sus poesias que
antes habia admitido en ella. ;Sera que, persistiendo en la misma
actitud, con la misma concepcioén de la poesia, sdlo es ahora mas
exigente en su gusto y por eso rechaza en sus versos lo que juzga
mal realizado? Algo mas hay, sin embargo. Siempre, como él lo dice

a we SS a

ANTONIO MacHapbo y sus “SOLEDADES” 241

El alma del poeta
Se orienta hacia el misterio;

pero ya no es toda suefios su poesia. “A orillas del Duero” tiene y da
la impresién viva, directa, clara de la renovacion primaveral en tierras
de Soria. Se advierte un contacto sostenido, preciso con la naturaleza
en muchos versos nuevos, y se hace ahora nitida, exacta la vision de
las cosas reales (“;Oh tarde luminosa!”). Al cuadro de evocacion
sugestiva y transcendente, que Antonio Machado practicaba antes
(“Las ascuas del creptisculo morado”’), sucede la descripcién simple,
objetiva, que fija y mantiene la atencion sobre lo visto en vez de per-
derla y disiparla en el sentido secreto del simbolo vago (“A la desierta
plaza”). El poeta es ya un ser que anda en la tierra, por las calles,
entre los hombres:
Mal vestido y triste
Voy caminando por la calle vieja.

Algunos temas circunstanciales, enteramente extrafios a su primera
poesia, se imponen a su espiritu y lo retienen, contra su anterior extre-
mada inclinacién idealista, en lo contingente de la ocasién: “El via-
jero,” “En el entierro de un amigo,” “A un naranjo y a un limonero
vistos en una tienda de plantas y flores.” Unos cuantos rasgos que
eran simples notas sueltas en las Soledades primitivas, como el gara-
bato de la cigiiefia sobre el molino, o la fruta del naranjo encendida
entre el follaje oscuro y el oro palido de los limones, se transforman,
por efecto de una técnica nueva, en signos tipicos invariables, que el
poeta empleara siempre, después, para distinguir y caracterizar con
detalles esencializados la estacion y el paisaje.

La misma sensibilidad se modifica en el poeta de las segundas
Soledades. Ya su poesia no es tinicamente una exaltacién que busca
su objeto sin encontrarlo y se adolora en sofiaciones quiméricas. Se
vuelve el poeta con enternecimiento a las remotas reminiscencias de
su infancia sevillana; revive las mas sencillas impresiones de su
pasado ; resucita las imagenes claras de la casa, del patio, del huerto
en que fue nifio, y recuerda con sincera naturalidad a su madre (“La
plaza y los naranjos encendidos,” “El limonero languido suspende’”’).
Empieza a vivir la humilde realidad que el mundo le ofrece y que
antes apartaba de si con el pensamiento sutil de su descontento y de
sus exigencias intimas. No es, por eso, menos delicado y exquisito.
¢Qué hay en sus versos anteriores mds suave y fino que el nuevo
cantar a los ojos de la amada, puro

242 HISPANIA

Como en el marmol blanco el agua limpia,

segtin su propia expresién? (“Si yo fuera un poeta”). ;Qué hay en
su poesia mas curiosos que el esfuerzo inutil por vencer el olvido y
reavivar en él la imagen del pelo rubio que antes quiso con amor, y
que, después, “un dia como tantos” brotara en su memoria al acaso,
como una llama de luz, cuando reciba de una rosa el mismo olor que
ellos tuvieron? (“Elegia de un madrigal”). Recuerde el lector la
célebre madalena embebida en te, de Marcel Proust: lo que sera
observacién pasmosa para la critica en el escudrifiador francés de las
complicaciones interiores, tiene en la obra de Antonio Machado un
antecedente poético, y esta coincidencia, con ser nada mas que un
detalle casual, dice mucho sobre la agudeza penetrante del poeta
espafiol. La reflexidn concentrada y honda, que no se desenvuelve en
trabazones laboriosas ni se muestra con aparato légico, y sdlo se des-
cubre, inesperada, en la revelacién rapida, repentina, del pensamiento
que precisa y define a media palabra una actitud o una emocién y
su transcendencia, es parte esencial y caracteristica de este escritor
que se dice

Poeta ayer, hoy triste y pobre
Filésofo trasnochado.

Antonio Machado en las segundas Soledades se acerca a la ma-
durez plena. Va, camino de los Campos de Castilla, a las realidades
exteriores de que hara la poesia de la tierra y la raza castellanas, y
al mismo tiempo afina su espiritu a la intuicién lucida que pondra
mas tarde en los claros y dificiles versos de las Nuevas Canciones
y del Cancionero Apécrifo.

“LAUXAR”
MONTEVIDEO

JUAN LORENZO PALMIRENO, SPANISH
HUMANIST

HIS CORRELATION OF COURSES IN A SIXTEENTH-
CENTURY UNIVERSITY

“Don Juan Lorenzo Palmireno, distinguished philologist and
literato of Aragon, was born in Alcafiiz in the year 1514, and died in
Valencia in 1579. He devoted his whole life to the study and teaching
of the humanities, and to the publication of the many literary works
which ranked him with the leading scholars of his day.”

So begins a tribute paid to this honored native son of the sixteenth
century by the first book published, less than a century ago, in
Alcafiiz.1 This inconsiderable old town of a few thousand inhabitants
has a history touched by the high lights and the deeper shadows of
twenty Spanish centuries. Its present name is of course of Arabic
bestowal, but the Alcafiizano would have us know that the Moors had
given this name to a town of Roman occupation, whether the Er-
gavica or the Anatorgis of Livy’s page. It is a pleasant village, on the
sloping verges of the Guadalope, set among gardens and orchards,
and busy with many a rustic industry. It is not and never was the
seat of a university, nor of a cathedral school. Situated sixty miles
from Saragossa, and still farther from Barcelona or Valencia, it
should fairly represent the rural life of Spain in any age. If, then, we
get a glimpse into its intellectual activities and interests in the fif-
teenth and sixteenth centuries, that glimpse should indicate something
of the intellectual activities of rural Spain during the Renaissance.

The interest of Alcafiiz in the “new learning” had found early
expression in its renowned townsman, the humanist, professor and
poet, Juan Sobrarias (1460-1528), who had finished his early educa-
tion in the University of Bologna. When in 1508,? already distin-
guished by ‘his writings, and by his teaching in his native town, he
was invited to profess the humanities in the University of Saragossa,
he accepted, and honored that institution with his labors for some
years; and then as poet laureate returned to live and work out his

1 Sancho (D. Nicolas), Descripcién de la ciudad de Alcafiiz, Alcafiiz. 1860.
The translations used throughout the article are mine.

2 This is the date commonly accepted for this event. I am inclined to be-
lieve, from internal evidence in the exchange of letters between Sobrarias and
Lucio Marineo on this occasion, that the former was called to Saragossa in
1507. But the decision is unimportant in this connection.

243

PRE ne oe at Fs? EN

244 HISPANIA

years in his own home town. The year of the return of Sobrarias to
Alcafiiz was the birth-year of Lorenzo Palmireno; and the boy’s
schooldays may well have been blessed by contact with the poet’s
mellowed learning. The influence of a citizen like Sobrarias must
have affected the quality of the schools boasted by Alcafiiz at this
time; but half a century earlier they must already have been of a
spirit to inspire the young Sobrarias, and that other pleasant poet,
Luis Jovér (fl. 1514), as well as the noted churchmen who emerged
from that modest town. The distinguished jurist and poet, D. Pedro
Ruiz de Moros, professor of law for nine years at the capital of
Poland, and author, among many other volumes, of the Decisiones
Lituanicas,® speaks in that book of the schools of “my native Alcafiiz,
and Olitus, under whose instruction I was trained in Latin letters
after the departure of Sobrarias.” This scholar is that Dominicus
Olitus who introduces himself by letter in 1507 or 1508 to Lucio
Marineo, the Sicilian humanist in Spain, claiming the friendship of
Sobrarias as a common bond.* He seems an inconspicuous member
of that circle of friends which included Sobrarias, Jovér, Gaspar
Barrachina, and the Sicilian.

Young Lorenzo Palmireno® had also as instructor in Alcafiz,
Maestro D. Jaime Franco, and D. Miguel Esteban, to both of whom
he makes affectionate and laudatory dedication of later works. Still
another book he dedicated Ad Ioannem Placam, doctorem medicum
olim nostrum in historia planetorum praeceptorem non penitendum.
And yet another publication is addressed to Petro Pugio Bezcitensi
praeceptors meo carissimo. This is an edition of the Hieroglyphica
of Horapollon, with the text in Greek, and a prologue by Palmireno,
also in Greek.* Esteban left Alcafiiz to open a school at Fraga, and

8 Cracow, 1563. The quotation is translated from Latassa, III, 81.

*Lucio Marineo, Epistolarum Familiarium Libri, III, 20, 21.

5 Biography of Palmireno, Antonio, Biblioteca Nova, II, 6.

®I have not seen this book. It is listed by Latassa (Diccionario Bibliog-
raéfico-biografico, II, 437) as found in the Franciscan convent of Santa Maria
de Jesus in Saragossa, and is not mentioned by Antonio. The title, as repro-
duced by Latassa, is an attempt to transliterate the Greek majuscular alphabet
into the Roman, using an inverted V for lambda, Q for phi, inverted U for
omega, etc. The effort suggests the printer’s lack of a Greek font: Excudebat
Antonius Sanahuja é regione portae Apostolorum Templi maximi, 1556. Books
from the Valencian press of Sanahuja are, however, found from the year 1554;
and an Analytica of Aristotle published in that year bears one word of the title
in Greek type, though the work is a Latin translation.

Juan Lorenzo PALMIRENO, SPANISH HUMANIST 245

Palmireno himself succeeded this Pedro Puig as schoolmaster at
Alcafiiz, in 1557. But the University of Saragossa, remembering its
good fortune in calling one teacher from Alcafiiz, now invited Pal-
mireno to profess the Latin language and rhetoric in its halls; and
thither he went ; and a few years later he was summoned to Valencia
“with great insistency and urgency” on the part of that institution,
which was humanly moved to covetousness both by the popularity
the new man had achieved at Saragossa, and by his lengthening list
of publications. In Valencia he taught until his death in 1579 or
1580; and the chronicle records that during that time the university
became a shining center of light, and boasted a congested enrolment
of students. Many of these came to reflect credit on his name, and
notably among them the gifted orator, the Doctor Vicente Blasco
Garcia, who, elected in the course of time to succeed Palmireno, has
left us a high encomium of his beloved master.’

The methods of a success are always of interest to the ambitious.
Though we had partly to guess what schoolroom inspiration moved
Palmireno to seek the vita umbratilis, we can now penetrate the
secrets of his own lecture-halls, and observe by what methods he
taught Latin to the sons of gentlemen in the graciously arrogant old
city of Valencia. His voluminous writings are full of professional
ideas. In fact, he had on his arrival in Valencia addressed the regents
of that university on his theory and methods of teaching. It would
take an ebullient classicist to venture that today. Yet he was not free
from conflict, either with other departments of study, or with pre-
vailing methods of teaching. He even wrote Comediae, in whose
dialogue the tedium of accepted method was made to yield to his
more modern theory, and had them publicly presented in the uni-
versity.®

The list of Palmireno’s publications is long. Latassa credits him
with seventy-six opera. Some of these are reprints, or compilations
of works previously published. There are many which we would
classify as monographs, or magazine articles, or public addresses. The
list, sifted and classified, resembles the output of an industrious
college professor of our day; not, however, of one who reads six

lectures daily and without notes, the routine of which our author
complains,

* Antonio, Biblioteca Nova, II, 323.

8 Latassa, op. cit., in article on Palmireno (J. Lorenzo), numbers 22, 23, 25,
and fragment quoted at end.

246 HISPANIA

Primarily concerned in seeing his students assimilate and corre-
late their reading, Palmireno made it his purpose to present in each
volume something of distinctly practical aid to the student of Latin,
since that was the language of scholarship. Several volumes explain
in the vernacular the difficulties and unfamiliarities of the Latin
authors: a significant comment on the “universal use of Latin” in the
schools of the time.

Palmireno’s interest was in the education of his students, rather
than in scholarship for its own sake. Antonio says of him that as a
man of wide reading and of diligence in matters of education, by the
editing of shorter books he turned to the advantage of his students
what he had learned in his own researches. So it is not for their
critical contributions to pure scholarship that we delve into his parch-
ment-bound volumes today, but because they reflect a lecture-room of
a Spanish university of the sixteenth century, and the methods of a
professor of the humanities in Spain during that time, a professor
whose motivating thought was to give to his students a sense of
orientation within their fields of study. While his volumes are vari-
ously dedicated to illustrious men, in spirit they are devoted to the
interest of the classroom, to making clear the perplexities of the
Latin language, and to arousing the correlating faculties of young
minds.

The content of his title-pages shows books suited to all ages, and
we are reminded that the least of those in a medieval university might
sit sometimes at the feet of a Gamaliel instead of being segregated
with Freshman instructors. For these lambs of the fold and for their
elders as well Palmireno had recourse to the direct method. And let
us disabuse our minds of the idea that Latin was there the tongue of
universal speech. The multiplicity and freqent re-enaction of aca-
demic laws regarding it would be proof enough to the contrary.® The
students were learning Latin as an unfamiliar language, but as a
living, not a dead one. And it was a living language, for it was still
showing growth, though rather like the growth of a topped tree
which puts out leaves in unexpected places. One volume especially
directed to the younger students is called: Silva de vocablos y frases
de monedas, medidas, comprar y vender, para los niftios de Gramética.
Aut doce, aut disce, aut patere prodesse cupientem.° This is dis-

® See “Latin universitario,” by Pedro Gonzalez de la Calle, in Homenaje a

Menéndez Pidal, Vol. I, p. 795, for a discussion of this theme.
10 Latassa, loc. cit., number 12.

Juan Lorenzo PALMIRENO, SPANISH HUMANIST 247

tinctly in the style of the modern teaching of a modern language,
grouping together phrases and words of monies, weights, and meas-
ures, and of buying and selling. Besides several volumes of this
nature, we find a provocative title in Descanso de estudiosos ilustres,
donde van adagios traducidos de Romance en Latin, empresas, bla-
sones, motes, y cifras..* Much lies beneath the surface of this title.
Palmireno himself explains elsewhere his use of the term descanso.
The process of learning, as his own books show it, is like a flight of
stairs with occasional landing-places (descansos) ; on these descansos
he rests the mind of the toiling student with a glimpse of his own
erudition, inspiring by example. Here the resting-place is the trans-
lation into Latin of the heraldic devices of Spain. This was a task
of dimensions. Were the old Catalan houses so influenced by the
revival of an ancestral tongue that they would willingly translate
their blazoned mottoes into Latin? Is this but a display of ingenuity
on the professor’s part, or a bid for a living, personal interest in the
language to be acquired? In another place he “rests” his students
with a comprehensive, critical review of the publications of certain
professional contemporaries, a review such as would have appeared
in the columns of the learned periodicals, had such existed. Lacking
these, he uses a monograph to remove, with all modesty, the beams
from his neighbors’ eyes: “Descuidos de los Latinos de nuestros
tiempos, emendados con toda modestia en las digresiones que para
descansar sus discipulos hacia, interpretando los comentarios de Cae-
sar.”"** Resting one’s students by pointing out the errors of his peers
is the perennial etiquette of the profession, a reductio ad personam
which enlivens the level of abstract discussion.

Though Palmireno did his full share of annotating texts, and of
treatises on rhetoric, prosody, orthography, and grammar, his fa-
vorite literary occupation was the making of Latin-Spanish vocabu-
laries. The difficulties and the need of this task were alike great.
In 1490 had appeared Palencia’s Vocabulario Universal, an unwieldy
pioneering work. Near the opening of the century Antonio Lebrija
had completed a labor of years and published his Diccionario Latino-
Hispaénico y Hispénico-Latin: the first pretentious Latin-vernacular
lexicon of Europe. Though an epoch-making work, it was not, as
scholars soon found, either infallible or all-inclusive. Moreover, it

11 Latassa, loc. cit., number 48.
12 [bid., number 42.

248 HISPANIA

was a great tome, expensive, and difficult of access to the student, and
not adequate for Catalan needs. Since the publication of Lebrija’s
work, there had been, apart from theological glossaries, very little
making of lexicons in Spain. In 1552, in Valencia, Francisco Juan
Mas published an Epitome Copiae Verborum, which scarcely emerges
from obscurity.* In 1561, Antich Rocha of Gerona, professor of phi-
losophy at Barcelona, in collaboration with his colleague Francisco
Clusa, professor of humane letters, published a Latin-Catalan lexicon
based on the Latin-Castilian work of Lebrija, to which he appended
an onomasticon, and a dictionary of medical terms.’* Scanty were
the glossaries with which the students of Palmireno might have come
equipped. They could depart well supplied. We do not send our
young students to the unabridged dictionaries, but meet his needs by
special vocabularies for given texts. Palmireno used another way.

Two books of phrases and idioms are worthy of note.*® The one,
Frases obscuriores oratorum et poetarum explicatae, was dedicated to
his colleague, Pedro Oliviario, public interpreter of the faculty of
poetry in the university of Valencia; the other, Frases obscuriores
Ciceronis, translated into Spanish the more difficult phrases, and ex-
plained the others. For the most part, however, his vocabularies are
not for the understanding of this author or that, but for the learning
of Latin, and are to be studied for their own value. His efforts and
his theory in this respect are fully illustrated in a compilation of
vocabularies which he includes under the title, Vocabulario del Hu-
manista. The Ticknor Collection in Boston contains a second edition
of this work, printed in Barcelona in 1575, and duly sponsored by the
professor of theology as containing nothing derogatory to the ortho-
dox Catholic faith. In his Preface to the reader, Palmireno makes
answer to the critics of the first edition, and explains the reason and
purpose of the book:

There are very many who, moved by envy, seek out what they may
criticize with malice more eagerly than what they may praise with good
will; and these reproach me sharply because, just as though I were mix-
ing a salad, I season this lexicon with herbs gathered from the gardens
of many writers, collected here into one mixing-bowl.

To answer these he relates the conception of the book, how walking

18 Antonio, Biblioteca Nova, I, 435.
14 [bid., I, 94; Gallardo, Biblioteca espafiola, 3644.
15 Latassa, op. cit., numbers 8 and 37.

Juan LorENzO PALMIRENO, SPANISH HUMANIST 249

one day on the shore near Valencia, he had fallen to thinking of the
wealth of life about him—the motion and color of the sea, the gleam
of fish, the flash of flying birds, the richness of flora; and as his mind
dwelt on the wonders of natural life, he reflected :

Ah, how unhappy are the youths entrusted to our care, who, oppressed
by the minutiae of syntax, and shackled by the toils of dialectic, are never
allowed to arrive at the true heart of philosophy!

So reflecting, he went to the pillars of the university asking for the
more specific teaching of the natural sciences under the general head
of philosophy. These replied that they were busy with the interpret-
ing of Galen, Dioscorides, Pliny, and Aristotle.

Then as a suppliant I begged that they would supply me with certain
names of birds and fishes, promising them credit in my commentaries;
. .. . but if I asked explanation of anything obscure, this they hid away
as though it had been the Eleusinian mysteries; and some even clamored
that I was putting my sickle into another man’s harvest. Is it not the
business of a grammarian, said I, to know words? Come then, tell me,
what is his business?

Failing to secure co-operation from his colleagues in the department
of natural philosophy, Palmireno undertook to correlate knowledge
for his students through a series of encyclopedic vocabularies, of
which this volume is a compilation. In the Aviso para el curioso
lector he introduces his method. The book will proceed like a philoso-
pher’s stairway, teaching the boy how he must climb from step to
step in the attainment of true wisdom. The first step is to learn the
words in Latin and in the vernacular ; the second, to understand the
nature and characteristics of the creature named; then to ascend to
the contemplation of the Creator and his works; and because stair-
ways have landing-places where climbers may rest, at the end of each
section he puts a descanso: a digression, to vary for the student the
monotonous learning of so many words.

Beginning with the Latin names of birds, he gives the translation
into Castilian, and if possible into Catalan, Italian, French, Portu-
guese, and sometimes even Hebrew and Arabic, that his students
meeting foreigners at court may appear cosmopolitan in their speech.
There follows an effort to introduce the bird to the students’ knowl-
edge, not merely by a word-equivalent, but by description ; comments
from Aristotle ; lore from Pliny, Varro, and Columella ; passages from

250

HISPANIA

more general Latin literature, mythology, traditions, and folk-stories ;
and by reference to quasi-scientific works in which further informa-
tion might be found, such for example as the Histoire de la Nature
des Oyseaux of Pierre Belon, Paris, 1555. Phrases and idioms used
in speaking of birds occupy a page, and the parts of a bird another.
Then follows the first Descanso, a discussion of eggs, and of the
peacock. Thus ends the Vocabulary of Birds.

The second vocabulary is of fish, with a descanso on the eel. The
third treats of herbs, seeds, fruits, flowers, odors, saps, gums, and
spices, with a digression on gathering the vintage. The fourth vo-
cabulary is made up of words necessary for understanding the herb-
alist, and the digression treats fully of rosemary, “all that Lorenzo
Palmyreno was able to find in Latin, Greek, Italian, and among
doctors and herbalists.” The fifth treats of quadrupeds, with a
descanso on the mouse; the sixth, of metals and precious stones, with
a digression on mercury, “living silver.” At the beginning of the
seventh Palmireno interpolates a note saying that, in a previous work,
El estudioso cortesano, where he was instructing in easy conversa-
tional Latin, he had recommended the young man about town to
learn by heart for his conversational repertoire information about a
dozen birds, fish, and animals of interest, ready to be produced when
opportunity knocked. (How the advertising pages of our magazines
have been anticipated!) Certain students had thereupon asked him
for examples; and for their sake he had removed from this edition
the Silva Numaria, or vocabulary of monies and computations, and
inserted a full discussion of two dozen beasties, not for the sake of
reading, but for conversational purposes, to wit: bat, raven, crow,
parrot, ostrich, crane, quail, phoenix, pelican, eagle, scarab, pyrausta,
deer, fox, bear, cat, monkey, pigmy, boar, mole, rhinoceros, and lion.

The suggestion here of a lively interest in natural history is in
keeping with the spirit in which the elder Pliny was received in Spain.
His works were eagerly read, discussed, and interpreted in the schools
of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and stories from them
were repeated in letters, and passed from mouth to mouth. There
was a nascent interest in the works of creation which, taken at its
flood, might have quickened into scientific study.

Palmireno’s volume ends with a long section which the author
calls after the Greek name of a vari-colored tapestry, Stromata. It is
a miscellany of anecdotal matter, discussion, and criticism, contribu-
tory to general information and learning. Among this miscellany,

Juan Lorenzo PALMIRENO, SPANISH HUMANIST 251
tucked in between anecdotes of the Greek philosophers and a textual
criticism of Pliny, is a Discurso de Lorenzo Palmireno sobre la
puente de Cesar. This passage of Caesar he characterizes as so
difficult that the most scholarly of Latinists have confessed or shown
themselves unable to follow through the construction of the bridge;
among these Iocundus Veronensis, Glareanus, Cardanus, Scaliger,
Leon Baptista Albertus, Ioannes Buteo, Gabriel Faernus, and Michael
Brutus, whose interpretations he discusses. One cannot fail to be
impressed in such a list of Italian and French classicists, mathema-
ticians, and architects, most of them contemporaneous with the
writer himself, with the up-to-dateness of Palmireno’s scholarship,
and with the rapidity with which books circulated in an age which
we are wont to regard as slow of inter-communication. He adds:

But in contrast to these scholars, note the daring of our schoolmasters
who, with no compunction, bring some bits of sticks, and with complete
self-satisfaction show the students a childish gewgaw fashioned like a
bridge.

Thence he proceeds to a critical discussion of the text, with its
glosses and commentators.

Another volume in which Palmireno sets forth similar criticisms
and enlarges on his theories of teaching is one entitled, El Latin de
repente de Lorenco Palmyreno, con la traduccion de las elegancias de
Manucio. The Elegancias was an early work of this precocious
Italian, published in Italy in 1558. This Latin at Sight of Palmireno,
the fourth edition of which was published at Barcelona in 1578, went
to its twelfth impression before the end of the century.*® Its theme
is the preparation and equipment necessary to the successful teaching
of Caesar. He deplores the slackness of elementary teachers, and the
credulity of parents in intrusting their sons to untried tutelage. Stu-
dents come to him, he says, full of glib phrases, their notebooks
bulging with synonyms and paraphrases :

But when I asked them to construe the passage for me, or to put it
into Spanish, it was a pity to hear them. I suggested that we speak Latin;
they replied that they had never done such a thing. I said, Then what good
is that which you have written out and learned by heart?

I wish to go into this a little more fully, for the good of the common-
wealth. I find three kinds of teachers: some who waste the whole hour

16] am indebted to a review of this volume by D. Marcelino Menéndez y
Pelayo, in his unfinished Bibliografia Hispano-Latina Clésica, Volume I, p. 411.

252 HISPANIA

given for the interpretation of an author in dictating phrases; others who
do not try to present more than the bare text, many times construed; and
still others who pride themselves on teaching a lesson at sight, without
any preparation.

Passing over the first and second of these classes with light scorn, he
deals more seriously with those who underestimate the need for

scholarship, and neglect their opportunity for correlation in present-
ing the Latin authors.

Erasmus, in the De Ratione instituendi discipulos advises that the mas-
ter make his entrance through a locus communis, or by an opinion, or a
verse, or an apothegm. ... . Luis Vives, in the De Tradendis Discipulis
says: “Let the master manage not to be dry and barren when he is pre-
senting the authors; and if in the text there appear the name of some
city, let him tell something noteworthy about it; or if the name of some
man, let him recount some memorable deed of his; and let him make the
mention full rather than brief.

This method Lorenzo illustrates from his own experience, with such
an incident as teachers love to recall. He was once asked to instruct
two sons of a nobleman, boys who had heard Caesar to the sixth
book,** and who pronounced him a very cold and insipid writer.
Palmireno, wondering, asked the former tutor what authors he fol-
lowed for Caesar. The other replied, None; that he was not obliged
to teach his students more than he knew. Palmireno responded that
that was true, provided he knew all there was to know about a sub-
ject ; but that if he spent all his time attending fiestas he would not at
sight know more than the syntax of the text, and that was not enough
for the sons of gentlemen. And when Lorenzo tried the boys with
his methods, they soon found savory what before they could not bear.

The author proceeds to discuss his professional routine, and the
amount of work required daily of a Spanish catedratico. A recent
article by an American educator, pleading for more free time for
production, contains this sentence: “In the Middle Ages, I read the
other day, teachers were not allowed to give more than one lesson
a day.”"* Hear this kindred plaint from the past:

17 It should perhaps be noted that as the American student-verb is to study
(or perhaps more accurately, to take courses), and the English to read, the
synonym of these in medieval Spain was to hear; the instructor-verb being to
read.

18 Vida Scudder, “A Pedagogic Sunset,” Atlantic Monthly, June, 1928.

Juan Lorenzo PALMIRENO, SPANISH HUMANIST 253

But if in Rome today Mureto carries his manuscript for only one hour
of public reading, what shall I do, who read six hours for public instruc-
tion and three in the palace each day, and two on holidays, and among my
readings the Greek tragedies of Sophocles? and if they should see me with
notes, they would throw me out, so great is the ceremony we make use of
here.’®

This Orden de las Classes which they gave us in 1562 is a hard com-
pulsion; because three hours of consecutive reading in the morning, and
three in the afternoon, are a great weariness, and take all the spirit out of
the reader; so that however good the readings may be, they are in two
respects actually harmful; the one, in giving the reader no time to digest
his material ; the other, that as the students are young blades, they cannot
endure so long inactivity... . . Ioachimo Fortio,”° in his Liber de Ra-
tione Studit, said that not only was it a weariness of the flesh to listen to
one man for six hours, but even for one: Taediosum est per horam inte-
gram cogitationem liberam ad alterius dicta cohibere. And so, that the
master may have the spirit he needs, his advice is that before each hour
he take a good swig of malvasia. One sees the Hollander in such an ad-
vice. I should be well exhilarated with nine wines a day, and be singing
with Chremes, Neque pes neque manus suum officium faciunt [sic].”*
. .. . But let the teacher not wonder that his duties at times weary and
at times vex him; these are temptations of the Devil; for after the holy
temples and churches there is nothing more sacred than the school, and so
that being tries to hinder the work. ... .

Vary the material you find in an author, voicing your own enthusiasm
over him, and your students will have to be delighted with the work, and
you with them. Just a few days ago I was reading that passage from the
fifth book of Caesar, Cum capite solo ex aqua extarent :** the story of the

19 The position of the professor in a university was scarcely comparable with
that of this brilliant French humanist (Mace-Antoine Muret, 1526-1585) who,
driven from France by jealous accusation, was, by the favor of Pope Gregory
XIII and other men of influence and wealth, established in Rome with his own
lecture-hall. There appears great latitude in professorial requirements in Spain.
Lucio Marineo was engaged at Salamanca in 1484 to read two hours daily
(Lucit Marinei Siculi Epistolarum familiarium libri, XVII, 1); but the same
writer in 1503 recalls that Lucius Flaminius had recently been accustomed in
Seville to interpret different authors for ten hours each day (ibid., VI, 7); and
Ferdinand of Herrera, at Alcala, laments that with seven hours a day given to
his hearers, he has scant time for creative work (op. cit., X, 2).

20 Joachim Sterck von Ringelberg, translating Sterck (Stark) into the Latin
fortis, arrived at the name Ioachimus Fortius (Ringelbergius). His book De
Ratione Studti appeared in Lyon, 1531.

21 Terence, Eunuchus, 729: neque pes neque mens satis suum officium facit.
22 Caesar, Bellum Gallicum, V, 18.

254 HISPANIA

rout of the Britons at the crossing of the Thames, and the conquest of
their leader Cassivelaunus. After the proem in Latin and in Spanish,
where I am wont to enlarge historically on what Caesar treats so briefly,
I began to extol the heroism of the Romans, and finally I said: Sons, I
have told you at other times of Caesar’s four methods of crossing rivers,
and I have lauded his great courage. But today I wish to dwell upon
deeds of Spanish valor; and if you will give them their due, they will
make this exploit of Caesar’s pale by contrast. [And the author tells, and
tells very well, the great exploit of Sancho de Avila in the passage of
the Zuyder Zee.] Caesar did great deeds, and great deeds did also Fer-
nando Cortés, as I have told you at other times; but they passed rivers

or straits, marshes or ponds; Sancho de Avila crossed the sea, and con-
quered it.

This propensity to illustration on the part of our professor caused
his detractors to speak mockingly of the “fairy-tales of Palmireno,”
to whom he replied:

Praeceptor Christianus dummodo reipublicae consulat omnes adversos
de se rumores facile contemnant. ... . I do not worry that my rivals call
me story-teller, since I know whether I am one or not; for I take my
tales from Plutarch, Seneca, Celio Rhodigyno;?* Theatrum Vitae Hu-
manae,** Atheneo;?° and other books which they do not read; and this
method which makes the student more thoughtful and better informed
I call humanity and philology, and not story-telling.

Remember that the teacher owes his students four things, to wit: de-
votion, good breeding, scholarly instruction, and resourcefulness.

Does it not seem to you that in reading Virgil it would be a real un-
kindness not to say about this line, Postquam introgressi et coram data
copia fandi, what a boy ought to do when he goes into a strange house?
His parents do not train him; . . . . so I give them this admonition: Do
not go rushing into a strange house; knock outside and wait; the Tro-
jans did not enter until they were invited, and then they asked permission
coram fandi. See that your students take away from the lesson some sen-
timent, proverb, verse, or precept to improve their manners, and give them
ideas of behaviour and of right living..... But that the reading of
Caesar may not weary you, try one of these nine methods.

1. Compare the exploits and strategy of war with those of our day ....
2. Compare with Caesar the Greek captains ... .

23 Celius Rhodiginus (Louis Ricchieri), Antiquarum lectionum libri XVI,
Venice, 1516.

24 Zwinger (Theodor), Theatrum Vitae Humanae, Basel, 1565.
25 Atheneus, Deipnosophistae. Ed. pr., Aldine, 1524.

Juan LorENzO PALMIRENO, SPANISH HUMANIST 255

3. Make a contentio demonstrativa to show that there was never a more
cruel tyrant than Caesar.

. Show that no other Roman captain . . . . equaled Caesar.

. Make short comparisons with the Elogios of Paulo Giovio,?* and so
recall to memory the work of the previous year.

6. Compare the passages of Caesar with one another, as Sebastiano Cor-
rado** has done with the Epistolae ad Atticum, to show the author’s
style.

. Criticize some places where Caesar contradicts himself.

8. Draw to the attention at every lesson the passages which, with skill and
modesty, Michael Brutus,2® Arnoldus Feronius, Paulus Iovius, and
Aemilius®® have taken from Caesar to use in their own histories.

9. Parallel military terms of Caesar with those in use today.

wn >

“NI

If you wish to teach Caesar well, you must not be stingy in buying
books, nor lazy in reading them, nor careless in selecting your material.
For military affairs . . . . you will read: Strategemata Frontini,®° Vege-
tius; Strategemata Polyaeni,* Rob. Valturius;** Theatrum Vitae Hu-
manae,®** Onosander,** Discorsi di guerra, di Ascanio Centoria,** y di

26 The Elogia of Paolo Giovio were variously published: in Venice, 1546;
Basel, 1556; and Basel, 1577.

27 Epistolae ad Atticum S. Corradi brevissimis interpretationibus illustratae,
Venice, 1544.

28 Bruti (Jean-Michel), Florentinae Historiae libri VIII priores, Lyon, 1562.
Reprint in 1574.

29 Paulus Aemilius, De Rebus Gestis Francorum libri IV, ca. 1516.

80 Vegetius, de re militari, Rome, 1494, included also the Strategematicon of
Frontinus.

81 The editio princeps of Polyaenus was made in 1589; but fifty years before
that time had appeared a translation into Latin: Polyaeni Strategematum libri
octo .... in latinum conversi, Iusto Vulteio interprete, Basel, 1549.

82 There exist copies of this Latin work of Valturius in various editions, all
imperfect and all lacking title-pages, dating between 1472 and 1535. It was
translated into Italian under the title, Opera de facti e precepti militari di R.
Valturio, by Paolo Ranusio, Verona, 1483.

83 Vide supra.

84 The editio princeps of Onosander appeared in Paris, 1598-1599. But a
Latin translation by Nicholas Sagundinus is included with the works of Vege-
tius, Frontinus, and others in the volume mentioned in footnote 30, sometimes
known as Rei militaris scriptores, Rome, 1494. This Onosandri Strategicus was
reprinted in 1541, 1558, 1570, at Basel.

85 Centorio degli Ortensi (Ascanio), Discorsi sopra Tarte della guerra,
Venice, 1558-1562.

256 HISPANIA

Machiavello ;** Reglas militares, de Cornacon ;** Langeay, traduzido pro
el secretario Gracian, impresso in Barcelona.**

For arms and equipment you will read: Vuolgangi Lazii Respublica
Romana,®® Aeliani de aciebus, with the illustrations of encampments added
by Francisco Robortello.*®

If you have any doubt about the shape of clypeus, galea, pelta, chlamys,
sagum, procestria, angariae, etc., you will read: Historia utriusque belli
Dacici a Troiano Caesare gesti, ex simulachris quae in columna eiusdem
Romae visuntur collecta, Fr. Alphonso Giaccono, Rome, 1576. Here, done
by the hands of real artists are the arms, and with them the exercises done
by the Romans.

Palmireno adds a list of seven further volumes on similar themes,
in Italian, French, and Spanish, published between 1562 and 1571;
and passes to the matter of text.

Since they prohibited Petro Ramo, and Ioannes Rhellicanus,*' there
remain F. Hotomanus, Ful. Ursinus, Aldus Manutius the son of Paulus,
Michael Brutus; these are bound together. H. Glareanus is unfinished;
what is done is small, but scholarly.

He adds a list of partial texts, including sixteen titles; and for the
cosas raras of Gaul, a dozen more. He slightingly mentions transla-
tions into French, Spanish, and Italian, variously dated from 1539 to
1575, for the teacher who might be the better for them; and returns
ingenuously to his own experiences :

If the teacher has the aforesaid, his task will not seem difficult; if,
however, you are so poorly read and so scant of preparation that you have
to learn each day all you need to use, that would be enough to drive you

86 Macchiavelli (Niccolé), Libro della arte della guerra, Florence, 1521.
Other editions earlier.

87 Cornazano (Antonio), Las Reglas Militares de Antonio Cornazano, tra-
ducidas en Romance Castellano pro Suarez de Figueroa, Venice, 1558.

88 Du Bellay (G) Seigneur de Langey, Disciplina militar; translated from
the French by Didacus Gracian de Alderete, secretary of Charles V, and of
Philip II, Barcelona, 1566.

89 Lazius (Wolfgang), Commentarium Reipublicae Romance illius in exteris
provinciis bello acquisitis constitutae, Basel, 1551.

40 Aeliani de militaribus ordinibus instituendis more Graecorum liber, a
Francesco Robortello nunc primum Graece editus, multisque imaginibus et pic-
turis ab eodem illustratus, Venice, 1552.

#1 T have not found an edition of Caesar among the voluminous publications
of the unfortunate Pierre de la Ramée (1515-1572), nor by any Rhellicanus.
Were they so thoroughly suppressed ?

a 8

lt

o

Juan LorENzO PALMIRENO, SPANISH HUMANIST 257
loco. But if you be an idiot, it is not well that the public must suffer to
provide you a living.

If you object that the students can never compass all that learning, I
am speaking from experience, and you may believe me. I have in my audi-
torium this year, 1578, students who have heard philosophy, others theol-
ogy, still others who are beginners in rhetoric; and they all enjoy the
modern methods which we use in reading Caesar... . . When Saturday
comes, the day of review and discussions, the students are divided after
the fashion of soldiers into Velites, Ferentarii, and Triariit. We call velites
those who have been but a little time in the auditorium, ferentarii those
who are glib and ready, while the triarii are the veterans, distinguished in
rhetoric and everything. Each one repeats an exercise, and his opponent
rises and corrects him. That finished, they challenge one another to con-
strue it in Latin, wagering a pen or a coin on the result... . .

He goes on to tell of examining his own students, one of them a
boy of thirteen, before distinguished visitors, and of how the boys
read at sight from Cicero and Virgil, construing, interpreting, and
scanning, and explaining the passages “by ecphrasis and by para-
phrasis,” so as to win the praise of all; and again, of entertaining
unexpected visitors in the auditorium by setting the students to read
and criticize passages heretofore unseen, to their own pleasure and
the satisfaction of the guests, to whom he took his oath that all was
done at sight. So he returns to his thesis: that Latin de repente is
the instructor’s goal for his student in learning, and the béte noire for
himself in teaching.

The methods of Palmireno did not escape contumely. He himself
dismisses his detractors with a gesture of annihilation, and a char-
acteristic epithet of “idiots”: men who without knowing Greek or
history or geography aspired to rival him, and who said the grapes
of scholarship were sour because they could not reach them. “Let us
not worry over them,” he says, “since they are now dead” ; and leaves
us to wonder whether he means professionally or in fact. He was
impugned also in the satirical verses of the poet D. Jaime Falco, who
in addition to mathematical and philosophical studies, and hopeful
endeavors to square the circle, strove also to wield the stylus of a
Horace or a Persius, seeking out objects of invective among the pro-
fessional men of the time.*? It scarcely appears whether inclusion in
this “black-list” carried opprobrium or distinction, or only personal
animosity, and a desire on the part of the author to imitate classical

42 Gallardo, Ensayo de una Biblioteca Espaiola, I1, 989.

258 HISPANIA

models. All but the echo of the detraction died away, while the works
of Lorenzo Palmireno went from one impression to another, and his
students, his own son among them, were increasingly won to an
enthusiasm for learning. In many of his methods he is as modern as
the best, and in nothing more modern than in his unlabeled correla-
tion of courses. As a teacher, he feels the unity of knowledge. He
recommends to his hypothetical instructor a list of books fresh from
every press in Europe, and expects of him a working knowledge of
several languages. His use of the vernacular where we might expect
him to use Latin may have been a part of his modernity, or it may
have been an expression of the stubborn Spanish belief that no lan-
guage excelled that of the Peninsula. His manner is an admixture of
conscious scholarship with ingenuous simplicity. He uses the ap-
paratus but lacks the accuracy of true philology. He would have been
an individualist in any age.
Caro Lynn

WHEATON COLLEGE
NorTON, MASSACHUSETTS

——" a_i

aoe DA

THE INDICATIVE FUNCTION OF THE
-RA VERB FORM

I. ITS DISAPPEARANCE IN PRE-GOLDEN AGE PROSE*

In modern Spanish there are two forms of the imperfect subjunc-
tive which are frequently used interchangeably. There is the so-
called -se form (e.g., amase, dijese) which has been used in most of
the various functions of the Spanish past subjunctive (pluperfect and
imperfect) since before the writing of the Poema de Mio Cid. And
there is the -ra form (e.g., amara, dijera) which has had a very dif-
ferent history during the same period.

This Spanish verb form in -ra has during the past seven centuries
developed from a comparatively uncommon form with only three
functions to a very important and much-used one with at least twelve
distinct usages. In twelfth- and thirteenth-century Old Spanish the
-ra form was used one-fifth as often as the -se form, and 75 per cent
of its occurrences were with an indicative force (the rest being used
in the apodosis of a pluperfect condition contrary to fact). In modern
Spanish of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the -ra form is used
about twice as often as the -se form, but only 3 per cent of its oc-
currences are with an indicative force (the rest being used mostly in
the apodosis or protasis of an imperfect condition, unreal or contrary
to fact).* |

If we divide Spanish literature into six periods and compare these
with respect to their employment of the -ra verb form, we find that:
(1) in Old Spanish (through the fourteenth century) the indicative
employment of the form was commoner than the subjunctive usage ;

(2) in pre-Golden Age Spanish (fifteenth and early sixteenth cen-

* Read at the Thirtieth Annual Meeting of the Philological Association of
the Pacific Coast.

1In 5,000 lines of very early Spanish (including the Poema de Mio Cid)
there are only 33 forms in -ra as compared with 163 in -se, 109 in ria, and
122 in -re; and of the 33 forms in -ra, 25 serve in the indicative, with either a
pluperfect or preterite tense value, and 8 in the apodosis of a pluperfect condi-
tion contrary to fact. On the other hand, in 60,000 lines of modern Spanish (in-
cluding prose, poetry, and drama) there are 1,056 forms in -ra as against 631
in -se, 825 in -ria, and 18 in -re; and of the 1,056 in -ra 30 serve in the indica-
tive (with a pluperfect, perfect, preterite, or imperfect tense value), while the
other forms in -ra serve in the several functions of the subjunctive (with the

tense value of a pluperfect, an imperfect, or a future by confusion of the -re
form with that in -ra).

259

260 HISPANIA

turies) the indicative usage dropped off very rapidly and became
infrequent (particularly in prose); (3) in the Golden Age (late
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) the indicative value of the -ra
form was practically non-existent; (4) in the Neo-Classic period
(eighteenth century) it continued non-existent until the end of the
century, when it began to be revived by certain pre-Romanticists ;
(5) in the Romantic period there was a definite revival of the indic-
ative usage of the -ra verb form; and (6) in modern Spanish this
function of the form has persisted in the elevated style of Spain.

The information on which are based the foregoing conclusions
was obtained from a detailed study of 580,000 lines of typical prose
and poetry by Spanish authors from the twelfth to the twentieth
century.” All occurrences of the -ra form in these lines were studied
and tabulated according to the function performed by each.*

As a result of this study it was found that, whereas the indicative
function of the -ra verb form predominates over the subjunctive
usage in the 40,000 lines of twelfth- to fourteenth-century Spanish,
the count for the succeeding period shows a marked difference. In
verse, the percentage of indicative occurrences of the -ra form drops
to 13 per cent, while in prose, which is our particular concern in this
paper, less than 2 per cent of the -ra forms have an indicative force.*
Thus we observe a striking and rapid decrease in the employment of
the -ra form with an indicative function in this pre-Golden Age

2See The History of the -ra Verb Form in Spain, by the writer, consti-
tuting his doctoral dissertation at the University of California, 1928, a critical
investigation of the development of the usages to which the forms in -ra, -se,
-ria, and -re were put during seven centuries, being based on an examination of
these verb forms in over 150 texts, averaging about 4,000 lines per text and
representing every period and genre of Spanish literature from the twelfth to
the twentieth century, approximating 580,000 lines of typical prose and poetry.

8 If the form was used in the indicative, it was tabulated according to what
the tense value was and whether or not the form was used in a subordinate
clause ; if in the subjunctive, whether it served with a pluperfect or imperfect
tense value, and just what its particular function was. Parallel with this work
there was carried on a tabulation of all occurrences of the forms in -se, ria,
and -re, in an effort to secure material for comparing parallel functions of dif-
ferent forms.

* Of the 647 examples of verbs in -ra in the prose of the pre-Golden Age
period, only 10 serve an indicative function; and of these 10, one-half are from
the 9,000 lines of the first half of the fifteenth century, 4 are from the 14,000

lines of the second half, and but one from the 16,000 lines of the sixteenth
century.

Tue INDICATIVE FUNCTION OF THE “-RA” VERB Form 261

period, so that, when Juan de Valdés wrote his Didlogo de la Lengua
(about 1553) and in it censured the using in his day of viniera for
habia venido,’ he was giving his disapproval of a verb usage which
our findings show was becoming increasingly uncommon in the texts
immediately preceding his time, and which was practically obsolete
during his day and thereafter for over two centuries.

The Corvacho of Martinez de Toledo (1438) contains 79 occur-
rences of the -ra verb form, of which 5 have an indicative value. One
example will suffice: “... yo fuy favlar con él... e me lo contd todo
como le engafiara ...”"* (“I went to speak with him, and he told me
all about it, how she had deceived him.” ) Como here means “how,”
in an indirect question. This use of como plus the -ra form with an
indicative value must not be confused with the construction in which
como is a relative adverb and may introduce the indicative or sub-
junctive."

After the Corvacho, the indicative usage of the -ra form is very
infrequently found. Diego de Santpedro used 107 -ra forms in his
Arnalte a Lucenda® (1491), with only two functioning in the indica-
tive, but it is notable that these lone occurrences are found in a pas-
sage in verse, inserted in the dialogue. In the same author’s Carcel
de Amor (1492), there is but one instance of an indicative value
among the 108 occurrences of the -ra form: “El cerco fue luego
algado, y el rey tuuo a su hija libre. ... Fue recebida del rey y la reyna
con tanto amor y lagrimas de gozo come se derramaran de dolor ... y
assi se entregauan con aluegria presente de la pena pasada.’® (“The
siege was lifted, and the king had his daughter free. ... . She was re-
ceived by the king and queen with as much love and as many tears of
joy as there had been shed of sadness .. . . and thus they turned from
the past sadness to the present rejoicing.” )

In the Celestina (1499) the -ra verb form does not occur in the

5 Juan de Valdés, Didlogo de la Lengua, Calleja ed., Madrid, 1919, pp.
245-46.

® Alfonso Martinez de Toledo (Arcipreste de Talavera), Corvacho o Re-
probacién del Amor Mundano (Sociedad de Biblidéfilos Espafioles, tomo 35, ed.
Cristébal Pérez Pastor, Madrid, 1901), p. 73, 1. 8.

7 A. Bello, Gramética de la Lengua Castellana, Paris, 1908, § 1232.

8 Diego de Santpedro, alas damas dela Reyna. Tractado de Amores de
Arnalte a Lucenda. (A typewritten copy of the 1491 edition, made for Profes-
sor Rudolph Schevill, who lent it to the writer.)

® Diego de Santpedro, Carcel de Amor, ed. R. Foulché-Delbosc, Barcelona-
Madrid, 1904. Bibliotheca Hispanica, XV, p. 63, 1. 26.

262 HISPANIA

indicative throughout the main body of the work, but there is one
such usage in the introduction to the seventh act, this being the only
example with such a value in the 139 occurrences of the form:
“Traele Parmeno a memoria la promessa, que le hiziera, de le fazer
auer a Areusa, qu’él mucho amaua.’” (“Parmeno reminds her of the
promise, which she made him, to help him win Areusa, whom he
greatly loved.”) By contrast with the other examples quoted in this
paper, we have here in Aiziera an occurrence of the -ra indicative with
a non-pluperfect past tense value: it seeming to have either a perfect
or a preterite value in this quotation.

The one possible example of the indicative usage of the -ra verb
form in the 124 occurrences of the form in Delicado’s Lozana Anda-
luza (1528) is a doubtful one: “...anoche la vino acompaijiar ... y
... Si me hablara ... estaba determinada comerle las sonaderas, porque
me paresciera ...”"* (“Last night she came to keep her company, and
if she had spoken to me I was determined to chew her nose off,
because she had appeared to me... .”)

After the Lozana Andaluza there appears no other indicative
usage of the -ra form in the sixteenth-century prose examined. There
is none in the Lagarillo (1554)** among its 66 -ra forms ; nor was any
found among the 26 -ra forms in the first half of Santa Teresa’s Las
Moradas (1577) .*

A summary of the findings indicates that: (1) of the total of
more than 150 texts which were examined, the Corvacho is the last
one (with the well-known exception of the archaically written history
of Mariana) to show an indicative percentage for its -ra verb forms
larger than 5 per cent until Jovellanos, 250 years later; (2) the two
only occurrences in the Arnalte are found in verse; (3) the one in
the Carcel de Amor is of the regular type; (4) that in the Celestina
appears in a chapter heading ; while (5) the occurrence in the Lozana
is a questionable one. After this (still excepting Mariana), and until
the pre-Romanticists, Cervantes is the only author of those studied
who used an -ra indicative, he having (in 120,000 lines) one doubtful

10 Fernando de Rojas, La Celestina, ed. Julio Cejador y Frauca, Madrid,
La Lectura, 1913. Clas. Cast., tomos 20, 23, Vol. I, p. 23, 1. 6.

11 Francisco Delicado, Retrato de la Lozana Andaluza, Madrid, n.d.

12 la Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, y de sus fortunas y adversidades, ed.
J. Cejador y Frauca, Madrid, La Lectura, 1914. Clas. Cast., tomo 26.

18 Santa Teresa de Jestis, El Castillo Interior, o Las Moradas, ed. T. Na-
varro Tomas. Clas. Cast., tomo 1, 3a ed., Madrid, 1922.

Tue INDICATIVE FUNCTION OF THE “-RA” VERB Form 263

example in a novela, and three definite occurrences in verse in two
comedias.

There is reason to believe that a study of this kind, which presents
concrete data as to the usage to which the very important Spanish
verb form in -ra was put during eight centuries, may be expected to
afford dependable evidence upon which to base deductions of real
value, particularly inasmuch as there was carried on the parallel
study of the verb forms ending in -se, -ria, and -re. Time will not
permit going into details here concerning the results obtained by
these comparative counts of verb forms, but it is enough to say that
there have been worked out certain tables of ratios, between parallel
or allied forms, which show the relative change in usage of these
forms from period to period. These tables offer several possible
scales of measurement which might prove helpful, not only in clari-
fying the interpretation of certain types of obscure passages, but also
in determining the date of composition, and the authorship, of a
given work, due allowance being made for the individual and geo-
graphical factors involved.

An approximate idea of the nature of these tables can be obtained
from the following extremely condensed summary of the column
which deals only with that ratio obtained by dividing the number of
-ra forms used in the indicative by the total number of -ra forms.
The data are condensed into periods (whereas the complete tables of
ratios give detailed findings for each of the 150 texts examined).
For the sake of clarity, this condensed summary disregards the
patently archaic texts (e.g., Documentos Lingiiisticos, Amadis de
Gaula, and Mariana’s Historia de Espaiia) and is divided into poetry
(ca. 231,000 lines) and prose (ca. 245,000 lines) :

Poetry Prose
12th century (1,000 lines)........ 75
13th century (20,000 lines)....... 56
14th century (14,000 lines)....... 57. 14th century (8,000 lines)...... 77
15th century (56,000 lines)....... 13° =15th century (23,000 lines)..... .029
Early 16th century (16,000 lines) .004
Cervantes (22,000 lines)......... .014 Cervantes (98,000 lines)....... .00037

Lope and others (51,000 lines)... .000 Lope and others (17,000 lines). .000

Late 18th century (12,000 lines).. .059 Late 18th century (10,000 lines) .025

Early 19th century (50,000 lines). .12 Early 19th century (16,000 lines) .032

Modern (5,000 lines)............ 20 Modern (38,000 lines)......... 045
Modern Drama (prose) (19,000

ean ee ay .000

264 HISPANIA

II. ITS ABSENCE FROM GOLDEN AGE LITERATURE*

A careful study of the function of each of the 4,603 occurrences
of the -ra verb form in 180,000 lines of Golden Age Spanish results
in the discovery that there are only 15 of these occurrences which can
be said to have an indicative force. However, 8 of these are in quota-
tions from ballads, and so must be set aside in our study of Golden
Age verb usage; and of the rest, 4 have a probably subjunctive
(though possibly indicative) value.

Thus there are left only 3 of the 4,603 occurrences of the -ra
verb form which have an unquestionably indicative value. The re-
sulting ratio of 1 to 1,534, or .00065, certainly justifies the generali-
zation contained in the title to this article. It must be noted at once
that the verb count and findings resulting from a study of Juan de
Mariana’s Historia General de Espaiia’* were excluded from the
above-mentioned tabulation, not because they show a different verb
usage, but because Mariana confesses that the style of writing em-
ployed in his Historia was not natural to him, resulting from his
reading of old sources which he consciously imitated.**

The three occurrences of the -ra form which have a definitely
indicative value are found in Cervantes’ verse. A doubtful case is
found in one of his novelas. The other even more doubtful examples
are: two in Lope’s Moza de Cantaro, and one in Calderén’s Casa con
dos Puertas Mala es de Guardar. Quotations are given below of
examples from: (1) Mariana; (2) old ballads; (3) Cervantes’ prose ;
(4) his verse; (5) Lope; and (6) Calderon.

1. Mariana’s frequent employment of the -ra form with an indic-
ative value is typified by two examples :

Desde alli dieron la vuelta a tierra firme; echaron por tierra a Car-
tagena, que poco antes habia sido quitado a los alanos y volviera al
sefiorio de los romanos (p. 121, 1. 31).

.. y a la verdad, la guerra para ellos era de provecho, y la paz les
acarreara mal y dafio (p. 351, 1.1).

* Read by title at the Forty-Fifth Meeting of the Modern Language Asso-
ciation of America.

14Juan de Mariana, Historia General de Espaiia, Biblioteca de Autores
Espafioles, XXX, ca. 6,000 lines, i.e., every tenth of the 530 pages.

15 [bid., prélogo: “Algunos vocablos antiguos se pegaron de las coréni-
cas de Espafia, de que usamos por ser mas significativos y propios, por variar
el lenguaje, y por lo que en razon de estilo escriben Ciceron y Quintiliano ...”

Tue INDICATIVE FUNCTION OF THE “-RA” VERB Form 265

The form in the first quotation has a pluperfect tense value,
parallel to the near-by compound pluperfect form, habia sido. It is
used in a relative subordinate clause, whereas the seven examples
quoted below from old ballads could all be interpreted as having a
preterite tense value, three being used in main clauses and four in
subordinate relative clauses. The second quotation from Mariana
contains a verb form with a preterite (or possibly pluperfect) tense
value, but employed in a main clause.**

2. The old ballads of Spain were much used for sources of
material by writers of the Golden Age. The following quotations
from old ballads, or paraphrases of such from them, are all that I
found in my reading:

a) Nunca fuera caballero
De damas tan bien servido
b) Como fuera don Quijote
Cuando de su aldea vino:

—Cervantes, Don Quijote," p. 84, ll. 7, 9

c) Nunca fuera caballero
De damas tan bien servido
d) Como fuera Lanzarote
Cuando de Bretafia vino,

—Op. cit., p. 289, 11. 9, 11

e) Alli respondiera el Rey
Con ternisimas entrafias

—Guillén, Mocedades, II,"* 109

f) por aquel postigo viejo
que nunca fuera cerrado.

—Op. cit., II, 774

g) esta aquel postigo aquel
que nunca fuera cerrado.
—Op. cit., II, 1034

16 Mariana, in his Historia General, uses 4/11 of his -ra forms with an
indicative value.

17 El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, ed. Rodriguez Marin,
Clasicos Castellanos, tomos 4, 6, 8, 10.

18 Jas Mocedades del Cid, Guillén de Castro, ed. Said Armesto, Clasicos
Castellanos, tomo 15.

266 HISPANIA

h) Repértate ya, si quieres,
Y dinos lo que es, Bartolo;
Que no maldijera mas
Zamora a Vellido Dolfos.

—Lope, Peribéiiez,’® p. 18, 1. 13

The form maldijera may mean: “Zamora would not have cursed
Vellido Dolfos more (under the circumstances in which you find
yourself ).” Or this may be a typical ballad indicative, with a preterite
tense value, in a main clause. In support of this is the opinion of
Menéndez y Pelayo when he says:*° “La admirable tragicomedia de
‘Peribéitiez y el Comendador de Ocaia’ parece estar fundada en
algun romance popular. Asi lo indican estos versos:” (and he quotes
the song of the segador on page 135 of Bonilla’s edition of the play).
The same critic quotes** several passages from Lope de Vega’s plays
in support of his introductory statement: “El gran Lope de Vega,
cuyo genio era enteramente popular y épico, usd mds que ningin otro
poeta de este ingenioso artificio, especialmente en las innumerables
crénicas dramdticas que compuso, y en los dramas legendarios y
novelescos.” One of these passages contains a form in -ra used as a
preterite indicative:

convidérame a comer—el rey Almanzor un dia,
después que hobimos comido—didéme la sobrecomida.

This convidédrame and the maldijera quoted above are the only ex-
amples of an indicative -ra which I have found in Lope’s plays, and
both are patently quoted from ballads. This seems a remarkable fact,
when we remember how much Lope used the ballads. It indicates
that the great playwright, who sought to appeal to popular fancy
through employing themes from well-known ballads, was neverthe-
less disinclined to use, along with them, the verb constructions which
are extremely characteristic of them. (The 234 old ballads in Menén-
dez y Pelayo’s Antologia contain 802 occurrences of the -ra form, of
which 653 are used in the indicative. )

3. Cervantes’ prose, of which I read over 98,000 lines, is quite
free from anything which might be interpreted as an -ra indicative.

19 Lope de Vega, Peribdiiez y el Comendador de Ocafia, ed. A. Bonilla y
San Martin, Ruiz Hnos., Madrid, 1916.

20M. Menéndez y Pelayo, Antologia de Poetas Liricos Castellanos, Tomo
IX, p. 270.

21 [bid., pp. 260-77.

Tue INDICATIVE FUNCTION OF THE “-RA” VERB Form 267

In fact, the following quotation of a possible indicative usage of the
-ra form is the only one I found which seemed to allow of such an
interpretation :

Vino la siguiente noche, ... tales cosas le dijeron sus criadas ... que la
pobre sefiora ... hubo de hacer lo que no tenia ni tuviera jamas en la
voluntad.

—Zeloso Estremefio,?* p. 205, 1. 22

The form tuviera has possibly a pluperfect indicative tense value,
being used in a relative subordinate clause. However there is room
for arguing that it has here the value of habria tenido, used in the
apodosis of a pluperfect condition contrary to fact, with the protasis
implied. Thus it would mean: “.... she had to do what she did not
have in mind to do, nor would ever have considered doing (had she
not been over-urged by her servants).” The simple -ra form, having
a pluperfect subjunctive value, was commonly used in Cervantes’
prose, in which the pluperfect tense value of the -ra form occurs as
often as the imperfect value, whereas in Lope’s prose the latter is
preferred over the pluperfect in a ratio of more than three to one.

4. Cervantes used in his verse at least three -ra verb forms with
an indicative value. They appear in two of his comedias:

a) Estas cosas boluiendo en mi memoria,
Las lagrimas trujeran a los ojos,
Forzados de desgracia tan notoria.

—Trato de Argel,”* p. 22, 1. 28

b) Arrojarame mi amo
con vn trabuco de si,
y en casa de vn asturiano
por mi desuentura di.

—Pedro de Urdemalas,** p. 142, 1. 17

22 Cervantes, Novela del Zeloso Estremeiio, ed. Schevill y Bonilla (Obras
Completas ... Novelas Ejemplares, Tomo II, Madrid, 1925), pp. 149-265, alter-
nate pages.

28 Cervantes, Comedia llamada Trato de Argel, ed. Schevill y Bonilla
(op. cit., Comedias y Entremeses, Tomo V, Madrid, 1915), pp. 8-102.

24 Cervantes, Comedia famosa de Pedro de Urdemalas, ed. Schevill y
Bonilla (Obras Completas ... Comedias y Entremeses, Tomo III, Madrid, 1915),
pp. 118-228.

268 HISPANIA

¢) Hizieron que vna tomasse,

Oe

|

y dieranle vna instruccion
y vna larga relacion.
—Pedro de Urdemalas, p. 168, 1. 19

All of Cervantes’ verse was examined, as given in the Schevill-
Bonilla edition, and in the 22,000 lines there were found 220 -ra verb
forms of which the above-mentioned three alone have an indicative
value. These three verb forms are each used in a main clause, and
each seems best interpreted as having a preterite tense value.

5. Lope de Vega does not employ the -ra verb form with a
patently indicative force in the eighteen plays of his which I have
examined, excepting in quotations or adaptations of such from old
ballads. There are two occurrences of the form in a play by him
which leave room for doubt; and another occurrence of the form is
herewith quoted in order to call attention to a different point of view
in its interpretation:

a) Leonor: Parece que te has turbado.
DoNa Maria: Por poco se me cayera
El cantaro de las manos.

—Mozo de Céntaro,”* 1. 1692

This form, cayera, might be construed as in the indicative, cor-
responding to the modern Spanish expression, “por poco se me cayé.”
However, this is the only example of just such a construction in the
plays of Lope which I read, and the verb seems rather to have the
value of a pluperfect apodosis, with the protasis implied in “por
poco.” Lope uses 589 -ra forms in nine plays, of which 91 occur in a
pluperfect apodosis and 255 in an imperfect apodosis.

b) Cantaro, tened paciencia ;
Vais y venis a la fuente: ...
Sois barro, no hay que fiar.
Mas ; quién, cantaro, os dijera
Que no os volviérades plata

25 Lope de Vega, La Moza de Céntaro, ed. M. Stathers, New York, Holt,
1923.

= Wwe =a ee (FO

~» Ff

L and — a - oe

Tue INDICATIVE FUNCTION OF THE “-RA” VERB Form 269

En tal boca, en tales perlas?
Pero lo que es barro humilde,
En fin, por barro queda.
—Op. cit., 1. 1736

The form dijera may be in the indicative preterite or perfect.
However, a more likely interpretation seems to construe it as being
in a pluperfect apodosis, equivalent to habria dicho, a value which
is served by one-sixth of the total -ra verb forms in nine plays
by Lope.

c) Quando le quisiera dar
deuido agradecimiento,
veo venir la justicia,
embayno y calle dexo.
—Lope, Castigo del Discreto,?* |. 360

In a note to this passage, the editor says (p. 214): “The -ara,
-iera forms of the past subjunctive, survivals of the Latin pluperfect
indicative, were more frequently used in the ante-classical and classi-
cal periods than today as a substitute for the preterite, imperfect, and
pluperfect indicative ....” Inasmuch as quisiera has the value of an
apodosis pluperfect (or possibly imperfect), with the protasis im-
plied, and there is no example of the indicative use of the -ra form in
the play, the editor’s note is not called for as it stands. His statement
as to the indicative use of the form in -ra is substantiated by my
findings, if the words “and classical” are omitted, and the expression
“ante-classical” is used to refer to a period as far back as the four-
teenth century.

6. The only possible indicative form in -ra in Calderén’s three
plays is an interesting example which appears difficult of interpre-
tation :

Llegué [a] Aranjuez y estaba

en la puente la caza que esperaba

al rey para salir en la ribera

a volar una garza que ya era

cogollo ya de pluma en el ameno

campo de flores lleno ... (Il. 2186-91)

26 Lope de Vega, El Castigo del Discreto, Together with a Study of Con-

jugal Honor in His Theater, ed. Wm. L. Fichter, New York, Instituto de las
Espafias, 1925.

270 HISPANIA

A poco espacio de una

guarnecida laguna,

espejo de la hermosa primavera,

la garza remonté que yo dijera
que avisada en su marjen la tenia
desde el primer crepusculo del dia.

—Calderén, Casa con dos Puertas,?" 1. 2235

The editor, in his note to this passage (p. 311), says: “2235.
dijera. To be translated as a simple past.”

In a review of the book (Hispania, IX, 188), S. E. Leavitt says:
“Casa, 2235-36, may be freely translated ‘and I would have said that
(the king) had told it to be ready and waiting on its margin.’” Dr.
Leavitt further states in a personal letter: “In regard to the word
dijera, 1 cannot see how it can be translated as an indicative, even
referring to line 2189 and following. It does not seem to me to repeat
the thought expressed there, but rather to add a new idea to it. The
only logical translation seems to be, ‘would have said,’ or ‘would
say.”

Whether or not these very few examples of the -ra verb form
from Cervantes, Lope, and Calderon are to be interpreted as having
an indicative value is secondary. The important thing is that it is
very difficult to find any examples in all the Golden Age literature
which can be even considered as possibly indicative in function.
Thus we conclude that an indicative value for the -ra verb form is
practically non-existent in the literature of the Spanish Golden Age.

27 Calderén de la Barca, Comedia famosa de Casa con dos Puertas Mala

es de Guardar, ed. G. T. Northup (Three Plays by Calderén, Boston, Heath,
1926).

SS ES.

Tue INDICATIVE FUNCTION OF THE “-RA” VERB Form 271

III. ITS REVIVAL BY THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY
ROMANTICISTS*

The Romantic movement, which effected a general revolution in
the literatures of Europe, is remembered not only for the forward-
looking spirit of its proponents, but also for their return to the
Middle Ages for material and inspiration. In the case of Spain, these
liberals, most of whom were exiled until 1833, reached out into other
literatures, and sought new modes of expression (such as unusual
metrical schemes), while at the same time gaining a renewed interest
in their own ancient ballads and other Old Spanish monuments.
They kept groping for the unusual. Accordingly, it is natural to
expect that, along with the themes and motives of their ancient liter-
ature, they should accept and put to use the constructions and verb
forms which were found employed in these gems of Spanish, particu-
larly when these were new to them and served to lend an antique
flavor to their mode of expression. And this indeed proved to be
the case.

A distinctly characteristic verb usage of Old Spanish before the
fifteenth century is the employment of the verb form in -ra (e.g.,
amara, dijera) with an indicative value. After this century it lost in
popularity very rapidly, and practically passed out of use in Spanish
from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. Let us glance at the
results of verb counts for three types of Old Spanish: an epic poem,
a collection of poems, and a great prose monument. The poem of the
Cid (written about the middle of the twelfth century, but not pub-
lished until 1779) contains 26 verb forms in -ra, of which 22 have
an indicative value. The other 4 forms are used in the apodosis of
pluperfect conditions contrary to fact. The Old Spanish ballads, of
which the 234 in Menéndez y Pelayo’s collection were examined,
show practically the same percentage of -ra forms used in the indica-
tive as exists for the poem of the Cid, or over 80 per cent. The
Primera Crénica General has an even larger percentage of -ra forms
with an indicative value. Thus we find that in three types of Old
Spanish the indicative function of the -ra verb form far outnumbers
any other usage to which it was put.

These three examples of Old Spanish are of precisely the kind
which aroused the interest of Spanish Romanticists. Such men, who
sought the exotic, the unusual, the non-stereotyped vehicle of expres-

* Read at the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the American Association of
Teachers of Spanish.

272 HISPANIA

sion, were the very ones who would be proud to employ a verb form
in a function which was practically never used in the literature of
the Golden Age (except in quotations from ballads). Particularly
would this be true if any of them had access to such a treatise as
Juan de Valdés’ Didlogo de la Lengua, in which the employment of
the form viniera for the compound form habia venido is censured,”
for it was precisely such a departure from the accepted way which
seems to have appealed to the Romanticists.

The Duque de Rivas proved of particular interest in this study,
as he in a way typifies the movement. In his early poetry (1806-
1833), written previous to his return from exile, he used the -ra
form in the indicative very generously (24 per cent of his -ra forms
being so used in 30,000 lines of early verse). But in his later poetry
(1837-1857) he used the form in the indicative sparingly (3 per cent
of his -ra forms being so used in 5,000 lines of later verse). Can this
indicate that he became satiated with the uncommon usages as time
passed by, particularly after his return to his native land? At any
rate, when he came to write his Don Alvaro (1835), with its combi-
nation of prose and verse, he did not use one of the 61 -ra forms
with an indicative value.

Of the other four typical Romanticists chosen for examination,
none failed to use the -ra form with an indicative value, though none
commonly. Larra, in his historical novel, El Doncel de Don Enrique
el Doliente, used 3 per cent in the indicative, but none in his Macias.
Zorrilla employed the -ra form strictly in the subjunctive in his play,
Sancho Garcia, while in his poem, Margarita la Tornera, he has but
one example of the indicative function of the form. Garcia Gutiérrez
used one such in his El Trovador, while Mesonero Romanos has 3
per cent of his -ra forms in the indicative in his Escenas Matritenses.
Examples of this construction are found in the following eight quo-
tations, in which the -ra indicative forms under discussion occur with
a pluperfect indicative force in four instances, and with some other
indicative past tense value in four. Five occur in relative subordinate
clauses, and three in main clauses.

1. (In the following quotation, deparara has the pluperfect indica-

tive value of habia deparado, and occurs in a relative subordinate
clause) :

28 Juan de Valdés, Didlogo de la Lengua, Calleja ed., Madrid, 1919,
pp. 245-46.

~~ FV ww weelUS &

be ‘yh.

Sy VY —_——

Tue INDICATIVE FUNCTION OF THE “-RA” VERB Form 273
Y por una oculta senda
Que el cielo deparara,
Entre sustos y congojos,
Llegar logré a Villacaiio.
—Rivas, Early Poems,”* p. 9

2. (Here cedieran has the imperfect indicative value of cedian,
and is used in a main clause) :

... peleaban y ...
... Clamaban ...
y safiudos y firmes no cedieran.
—Op>. cit., p. 59

3. (The next form, perteneciera, is used in a relative subordinate
clause with a pluperfect indicative value equivalent to habia perte-
necido) :

.. este mismo habia casi abandonado las esperanzas de recobrar aquel
reino que ... le perteneciera por su boda con dofia Beatriz ...
—Larra,*® El Doncel, p. 105

4. (In the next quotation, buscara is used in a relative subordi-
nate clause, with the imperfect indicative tense value of buscaba) :

.. he hallado en vez de la esposa o de la venganza que buscara, esos ...

despojos ...
—Op>. cit., p. 169

5. (The context of the following quotation points to a preterite
tense value for echaran, in a main clause, equivalent to echd) :

Y al punto sin mas azares
Apretaron el transporte
Y echaran hacia la corte
De Olmedo por los pinares.
—Zorrilla, Margarita,™* p. 48, 1. 29

6. (The form ocupdran in the next quotation is used in a rela-

29 Angel Saavedra, Duque de Rivas, Obras completas de, Barcelona, 1884,
2 tomos.

80 Mariano J. de Larra, El Doncel de Dom Enrique el Doliente, Obras com-
pletas de Figaro, tomo 1, Paris, 1883.

81 José Zorrilla, Margarita la Tornera, Leyenda, Tradicién, Madrid, Per-
lado, 1923, Bib. Univ., No. 26, pp. 5-126.

274 HISPANIA

tive subordinate clause, with the tense value of a preterite or a per-
fect: ocuparon or han ocupado) :

.. y el viejo sonrie ... al amor de los honores ... que a él le ocupdran en
las distintas estaciones de la vida.

—M. Romanos, Escenas Matritenses,** p. 16

7. (The same author employs a parallel form below, but in a
main clause, and with a pluperfect indicative tense value, equivalent
to habia dejado) :

Erase un cuarto pequefio
Las paredes sombreadas

Las arafias las poblaban,
Juana era caritativa,

Y asi vivir las dejéra
Consiguiendo con sus telas
Tener la casa colgada.

—Op. cit., p. 70

8. (The next example shows hiciera employed in a relative sub-

ordinate clause, with a probably preterite tense value equivalent to
hice):

j Perdén, Dios mio, perdona si te ultrajé! ... rechazame de tu altar.
Los votos que alli te hiciera fueron votos de dolor ...
—G, Gutiérrez, El Trovador,** III, 4, 10

Previous, however, to these well-known Romanticists, there were
at least two precursors of the movement (if we may call them such)
who employed the -ra form in the indicative: Jovellanos and Melén-
dez Valdés. The single occurrence in El Delincuente Honrado by
Jovellanos is the first indisputable example which was found in the
literature of Spain since the end of the fifteenth century, with the
exception of Cervantes’ three in verse and Juan de Mariana’s fre-
quent use of it (due to an intentionally archaic verb style, according
to his own declaration). In fact about three centuries passed between
Diego de Santpedro’s employment, in his Cdrcel de Amor, of an
-ra form in the indicative and Jovellanos’ examples of the usage:

82 Ramén de Mesonero Romanos, Articulos Escogidos de las Escenas Ma-
tritenses, tomo 1, 1832-36, Bib. Univ., No. 51, Madrid, 1879.

88 Antonio Garcia Gutiérrez, El Trovador, ed. A. Bonilla y San Martin,
Ruiz Hnos., Madrid, 1916.

r-

at

)-

Tue INDICATIVE FUNCTION OF THE “-RA” VERB Form 275
once in his above-mentioned comédie larmoyante, and once in his
Elogio de Carlos III. As for Meléndez Valdés in relation to this
employment of the -ra form, all who are familiar with Bello’s Gra-
méatica Castellana will recall his vigorous protest against the modern
tendency to use the -ra form as an indicative at all, in which protest
he particularly censures Meléndez Valdés in his “arbitrariedad licen-
siosa.” In a collection of poems by the latter there were found 15
indicative occurrences of the -ra form as compared with 107 sub-
junctive ones (in 7,500 lines). Examples from these two men are
herewith given, but those who would be interested in a more detailed
discussion of the indicative function of the form in the works of
Meléndez Valdés will consult the Bello-Cuervo Gramédtica (the foot-
note to paragraph 720) for examples of the preterite, perfect, and
imperfect indicative employment of the form, which Bello thinks
inexcusable. He argues for a strictly pluperfect indicative function,
if it must be indicative at all.

The example from El Delincuente Honrado* by Jovellanos is
one with a pluperfect indicative value, and in a relative subordinate
clause :

.. cClamé continuamente por la vuelta de mi padre, a quien la necesidad
le obligara a buscar en paises lejanos los medios de mantener ... una
familia (p. 68).

This example from Jovellanos (in which obligara has the value
of habia obligado) is the first certain appearance of such a usage
which was found, after three very unusual occurrences in Cervantes’
verse and a doubtful one in one of his novelas, and these were the
only examples of the -ra form in the indicative which were found in
the literature of between 1528 and 1774 (with the exception of
Mariana’s Historia and a few ballad quotations). In the century
previous to 1528 (if we except the Amadis) there appeared only five
examples of the usage, Santpedro employing three (two of them in
verse), Rojas one (in a chapter heading of the Celestina), and Deli-
cado one (a doubtful case). Thus it would seem that the employment
of the form in -ra as an indicative passed out of regular use in
Spanish for a century and a half, and that it was non-existent during
almost four centuries in the written language of Spain, except for
very infrequent and sporadic occurrences. Therefore it seems rea-
sonable to consider its appearance in the writings of the Romanti-

84 Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, El Delincuente Honrado, Madrid, 1832.

Sata

276 HISPANIA

cists, and its use since then, as a revival of the original function of
the form, rather than a survival.

Certain grammarians (e.g., Marden,** Lenz,** and Araujo**)
imply that there was a continuous use of the -ra form as an indica-
tive down to the present day. But such authorities as Cejador,™
Cirot,*® Bello, * and Cuervo** show clearly that they believe there
was a discontinuance of its use in that function, followed by a re-
vival, such as the writer’s findings prove to be the case.

Of the 15 occurrences of the -ra indicative in the 7,500 lines of
Meléndez Valdés’ Poesias, all but two are employed with a past tense
value which is other than pluperfect (usually preterite), while all but
one are used either in a main clause or else in a non-relative sub-
ordinate clause. It is interesting to note that the one example in a
relative subordinate clause is one of the two with a pluperfect indica-
tive value, thus corresponding to what was found in a study of 234
romances viejos, that the occurrences in the pluperfect indicative are
used mostly in relative subordinate clauses, whereas the non-pluper-
fect past tense occurrences are even more strictly limited to non-
relative subordinate, or main, clauses.

Yo las flores ...
Robe a este canastillo,
Que el Amor a mi mano
Presentara benigno.
—Meléndez Valdés, Poesias,** I, 249

Presentara here can have a pluperfect indicative value, like that
of habia presentado, and it is in a relative subordinate clause. In the
next two quotations, diéramos and hallara have the preterite values,
respectively, of dimos and hallé, and each is in a main clause:

85 C. C. Marden, Review of S. G. Morley’s Spanish Ballads, Modern Lan-
guage Notes, XXVII, 3, 91.

36 Rodolfo Lenz, La Oracién y sus Partes, par. 290.

87 Fernando Araujo, Gramdatica del Poema del Cid, Madrid, 1897, pp. 320-21.
38 Julio Cejador, La Lengua de Cervantes, I, 256.

8® Georges Cirot, Mariana, Historien, Bordeaux, 1905, p. 390; Quelques

remarques sur les archaismes de Mariana ... , Romanische Forschungen, XXIII,
1907, p. 898.

40 Andrés Bello, Gramdtica de la Lengua Castellana, Paris, 1918, par. 720.
41 Rufino Cuervo, Apuntaciones ... , Paris, 1914, par. 319.
42 Juan Meléndez Valdés, Poesias de Juan Meléndez Valdés, Madrid, 1820.

at

Tue INDICATIVE FUNCTION OF THE “-RA” VERB ForM 277

A la par los cubrimos: a la par el sustento

Les diéramos ...
—Op>. cit., I, 208
En él sus saetas
Se puso a probar;
Mas nunca lo hallara
Su punta fatal.
—Op. cit., I, 300

The -ra indicative persisted after the close of the Romantic pe-
riod, and we find evidences of its continued employment since then
to our day. It occurs occasionally in works of the Spanish writers
such as Pérez Galdés, Palacio Valdés, Antonio Machado, Martinez
Sierra, Azorin, Hurtado and Gonzalez Palencia, Menéndez Pidal
and Unamuno, but particularly in those of the Galicians such as
Pardo Bazan, Valle-Inclan, and Pérez Lugin. Spanish-American
novelists and poets, who use the -ra indicative very commonly, were
not discussed in the study upon which this paper is based.

Perhaps the most striking statement which has been made in
this paper is that three centuries of Spanish literature passed with
almost no occurrences of the indicative usage of the -ra form, and
that it remained for the Romanticists to revive this function. How-
ever, the statement is based on the results of a detailed reading of
about 180,000 lines of Golden Age literature, or approximately one-
third of the total of 580,000 lines which the writer read in making
his study of the history of the -ra verb form in Spain. These show
not only an almost strict omission of the -ra form in an indicative
function, but a steady development of that form away from a plu-
perfect subjunctive value toward an imperfect one. The form was
used successively in the apodosis of a condition, then the protasis,
and finally other subordinate clauses in the subjunctive. In other
words, if we consider that the history of the functions of the -ra
form shows a development in this order: indicative (pluperfect and
other past tense values), and subjunctive (pluperfect, in conditions,
apodosis, and protasis, and then other subordinate clauses; and im-
perfect, in the same order of functions )—then it can be said that the
literature of the Golden Age shows a definitely settling preference
for the imperfect over the pluperfect subjunctive function of the
-ra form, and the farthest departure from the oldest function, that
of an indicative. This being established, it is indeed striking suddenly

278 HISPANIA

to find a return to the oldest of functions, a revival of a usage which
is strictly avoided by even Lope de Vega, who is famous for his
recourse to ballads for material for his plays. Indeed, Lope was a
Spanish Romanticist ; but not even he dared, or cared, to depart from
established usage, it remaining for the nineteenth-century Romanti-
cists and their immediate predecessors to give back to the Spanish
language its historically legitimate, but strictly antiquated, usage of
the already very common verb form in -ra, that with an indicative
value.

Leavitt O. WRIGHT
UNIVERSITY OF OREGON

THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE
AT MADRID

Many of the readers of Hispanta have visited the beautiful In-
ternational Institute in Madrid and seen its Alice Gordon Gulick
Memorial Hall at Miguel Angel, 8, containing assembly hall, library,
laboratories, classrooms, and so forth, and, across the tennis court,
at Fortuny, 53, that charming villa, which serves as dormitory, in
the midst of the garden with fountain and flowering trees, with the
picturesque old porteria not far away. Others will live there some
summer or spend a happy year in residence. A sketch of how this
experiment in international education came into being is given here.

Mrs. Alice Gordon Gulick, who, before her marriage, had taught
philosophy at Mount Holyoke College, went to Spain as a bride and
early realized how eager Spanish girls are for education. She did her
bit to cut down the high percentage of illiteracy, as many an aristo-
cratic lady in Spain does today, by teaching her own servants to read
and write. Then other girls came and begged her to teach them. Soon
she found herself preparing other Spanish girls for a degree, un-
heard of as such a practice was at that day, away back in the ’eighties.
In 1892 the school was incorporated under the laws of Massachusetts
and officially named the International Institute for Girls in Spain,
for she wished not only Spanish girls, but all girls in Spain to be able
to study there. She chose assistants from Mount Holyoke, Wellesley,
and other colleges in this country.

Miss Jane Addams visited her in those days and wrote: “The
school has evoked and at the same time filled a wonderful opportunity
in Spain and should have the co-operation of all women interested in
the higher education of women.”

Degrees in Spain can be granted only by the government. The
law required public, oral examinations. Those pioneer women stu-
dents passed so brilliantly that Mrs. Gulick decided to help the most
promising of them to continue for the Master’s degree. She studied
Hebrew, so that she might teach it to them. Soon the first class of
two young women completed the government requirements for their
second degree in the humanities. Then two others won their M.A. in
science, in preparation for the profession of pharmacy, a career
which appeals strongly to Spanish women, because its work is seden-
tary, inconspicuous, useful, and interesting.

279

:
bay

280 HISPANIA

The professors, who examined these girls at the University of
Madrid and found that they had been taught only by women, were
by chance also the leading statesmen of Spain. Their enthusiasm was
intense. More than thirty years ago that group began to lend its sup-
port to Mrs. Gulick’s school, beginning with Salmerén, ex-president
of the short-lived Spanish Republic; Gumersindo Azcarate, for a
generation head of the Republican party ; and Francisco Giner de los
Rios, doubtless the most influential leader in Spanish educational
reform of the entire nineteenth century. These liberal intellectuals
approved of the education of women and helped forward this Ameri-
can project in Spain, even after the death of Mrs. Gulick in 1903.

Conditions in Spain have changed vastly since the Institute was
founded. It is no longer true to say that the only openings for edu-
cated women are “to become primary teachers, telegraph operators,
or Queen.” Our policy has been to take into consideration these
changes and meet each new opportunity by expansion in our program.

The Directoras, year after year, have been Americans of long
acquaintance with the Institute and years of experience in Spain.
Frequently professors, who are members of the Corporation of the
International Institute, have devoted their Sabbatical years to presid-
ing at Fortuny, 53, and teaching at the Institute. Miss Fahnestock
of the Spanish Department at Vassar College; from Smith College,
Miss Bourland of the Spanish Department, Miss Cheever of the De-
partment of English Literature, Miss Foster of the Department of
Chemistry; Miss Gardner of the University of Kansas; and the
Phipps sisters of the University of Texas have offered invaluable
service, frequently without salary. The three Sweeney sisters have
enlarged our ever widening circle in Madrid while teaching there.

In 1913 Dofia Maria de Maeztu came into the family and to the
staff of the Institute. She had already won two Doctor’s degrees, had
studied in Germany, and lectured in England. She had taken an
active part in public education in Bilbao and was eager to open wider
opportunities for her countrywomen. At the invitation of the Junta
para ampliacién de estudios in 1915 she, with the most mature of the
students at the Institute, moved across the street and organized their
Residencia de sefioritas. Co-operation between this Residencia and
the Institute has always been intimate. It is now difficult to discern
with the naked eye that they are two different institutions, so com-
pletely does their work dovetail together.

Since 1907 the Junta para ampliacién de estudios has devoted its

Tue INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE AT MADRID 281

energies to securing more liberal education for Spain, especially for
men students. Modern laboratories, foreign fellowships, exchange
professorships, the Residencia de estudiantes, the Summer Session
for Foreigners, and the Instituto-Escuela are influencing thousands
in all parts of the Peninsula and bringing Spain abreast of the rest
of Europe. The influence of the Residencia de sefioritas under such
care is felt in every part of Spain, and their cordial friendship with
the International Institute from the beginning is thoroughly appre-
ciated.
The Junta is comprised of the ablest educators in Spain, the most
advanced' liberal thinkers. With them it is almost a religion to serve
their country. No sacrifice is too great. Dr. Maria de Maeztu is the
only woman member of the Junta. In joining forces with the Junta,
the Institute is gaining for its work an effectiveness and an influence
not otherwise to be obtained. In this collaboration the American
work becomes an integral part of the best Spanish intellectual life.
During the Great War, when the Institute found it difficult for its
American teachers to reach Spain through the submarines and other
obstacles, the academic building of the Institute had been let at nomi-
nal cost to the Junta. There they had inaugurated their experiment
with a progressive school, calling it the Instituto-Escuela. Its success
was instantaneous, partly because of the splendid, sunny, modern
building, but largely because Spanish families are ready to grasp the
best that the twentieth century can give to their children. Our re-
sponsibility for educating young girls and children has been wholly
turned over to our Spanish collaborators. Over a thousand girls and
boys at present are enrolled under able, well-trained teachers, and
the Instituto-Escuela, now in its own buildings, serves as a model of
primary and secondary education for all the provinces of Spain.
Ultimate proof of the Institute’s service to women and girls in
Spain came before its American friends in a proposal from the Junta
to assume ownership and support of part of our property and work
in Madrid. Dr. Maeztu came to this country and laid before the
Corporation of the International Institute the plan to take over the
residence at Fortuny, 53, with the garden immediately adjoining that
house. She and the Junta accept as conditions of purchase the per-
manent use of the property for the higher education of women. They
guarantee the pursuit therein of the fundamental aims of the Insti-
tute. This is perhaps the highest attainment that supporters of the
Institute could hope to reach. Our past difficult endeavor has so

282 HISPANIA

aided in forwarding liberal education for women in Spain that, far
earlier than we could hope, a definitely organized group of Spaniards,
under an inspiring spirit of sacrifice and devotion, commanding but
meager resources, collected a substantial sum to offer as initial pay-
ment on the purchase of Fortuny, 53. They are now making specified
annual payments until their ownership of that portion of the property
is complete. The Alice Gordon Gulick Memorial Hall is not included
in this purchase.

This house on the Calle de Fortuny is now filled to the eaves with
women graduate students, Spanish, American, English, French,
Swiss, with an occasional resident from Poland, South America,
Porto Rico, or elsewhere, a group truly international in spirit, each
earnestly carrying on what, even in this country, is recognized as
graduate study. Spanish students are always in the majority, bound
for their Master’s degree, for a Doctorate in philosophy, science, or
medicine, for honors at the Conservatory of Music, or pursuing pro-
fessional courses to fit themselves to become teachers in normal
schools, provincial inspectors of schools and so forth.

Americans in residence are usually carrying on research in litera-
ture, history, or art. Nowhere can such a harmonious family group
be found, exchanging hospitality often, reveling in bits of witty
repartee, discussing current plays and lectures, exhibitions and social
functions, each nationality contributing from its own point of view
to enrich life with the quick-witted Spanish girls. Comradeship and
friendliness among these girls continues long after the too brief
years of study are past.

In that delightful book, A Picture of Modern Spain, by J. B.
Trend, the author gives vivid pen pictures of José Castillejo, the
energetic executive secretary of the Junta para ampliacién de es-
tudios, to whom Spain owes so much; of Don Manuel Cossio, the
authority on El Greco, always a genial friend and adviser; of Don
Alberto Giménez, director of the men’s Residencia nearby; of Don
Ramiro de Maeztu, now Ambassador from Spain to Argentina; and
others of our warmest friends, and continues as follows:

The Residencia de sefioritas is the creation and the expression of
another outstanding personality in Spanish education, the most distinc-
tive and most penetrating of all, that of Dofia Maria de Maeztu y Whit-
ney. The founder and Directora of the Residencia de sefioritas is the
daughter of an English woman, as her name implies, but one feels that
all the qualities which one admires most and respects most in both peoples

THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE AT MADRID 283

are here united and raised to their highest power. A visit to the Residencia
is in this sense the climax of a journey to Spain. Its foundation dates
only from 1915, but its success is unquestionable. There is a vigorous
corporate feeling among all those concerned with it, a fusion of intellec-
tual interests with real friendship, and the immense personal devotion
which everyone feels towards the Directora. Dofia Maria de Maeztu has
met with difficulty and opposition of every sort. .... The aim of the
Residencia de sefioritas is to teach its members to think for themselves;
to understand both sides of a problem, and choose the alternative which
most commends itself to their good sense and their affections. Many of
them become teachers; but none of them will be without influence in the
life of Spain; none will forget the example and inspiration of their
Directora.

The importance and efficiency of the work which is being done at the
two Residencias cannot be exaggerated. In Spain, as in every other
country, the “Intellectuals” are a minority. Their position is, however,
harder than it is with us, for at present they are rather isolated, and form
a definite set. Culture is not so widespread in Spain as in some other
countries ; but those who are interested in it are tremendously keen, and
their education is not in the least superficial. The army and the aristocracy
do not worry about them and the bourgeoisie dismisses them as “high-
brow.” Yet it is not a one-sided view which sees modern Spain and
modern Spanish progress entirely in terms of this little group of idealists.
They are fighting the same battle against the anti-intellectual attitude
which is being fought in England and France, Germany, and Italy. They
realize that the first thing to be done, as far as Spain is concerned, is to
educate people; to reduce the illiterates, who now number about fifty per
cent of the population; and to make people look around them, co-ordinate
their observations and think for themselves.

Allow me to quote from letters coming to me from residents, for
they give glimpses of the life on Fortuny:

We are enjoying especially the older girls of the University group.
Sefiorita de Maeztu seems in good health and is a most extraordinary
person, one of real power. Every Saturday evening we have either a
lecture here or a more informal program for the girls in all the houses
of the Residencia de sefioritas. On one of these evenings Sefiorita de
Maeztu gave the story of Well’s Undying Fire very dramatically, read-
ing much of it aloud in Spanish. The girls listened breathlessly, as they
always do. Last Saturday evening she told them about Lessing and
especially Nathan der Weise. It was an impressive discussion of toler-
ance. She can hold her audience with such magnetism that they beg her
to go on whenever she stops. I hope that she will not be so absorbed in

284 HISPANIA

the work here that she will fail to lecture abroad, for few women can do
as she does.

Sefiorita Maria de Ofiate, formerly assistant professor at Vassar
College, gives enlightening piano recitals with interpretations, to
illustrate the history of Spanish music. Sefior Benedito, brother of
the painter, teaches old carols and quaint regional songs, often those
that he has heard himself, although they may never have been in
print. Many who read this will have enjoyed the illustrated talks on
Spanish costume, given in this country by Isabel de Palencia. Upon
her return from one of her journeys the students gave a garden-
party in her honor and she entertained them with an account of her
travels.

Dr. Nieves Gonzalez Barrio came to America on a fellowship
offered by the Junta. She carried on original research in the labora-
tories of the Mayo brothers at Rochester, Minnesota, the results of
which were published in both American and Spanish medical jour-
nals. Her eagerness for practical work created so favorable an im-
pression that she is still in helpful correspondence with several cen-
ters, which today lead the medical thought of the world. In Madrid
she is the leading woman physician, attracting to her laboratory other
pioneers in the study of metabolism, helping in child health, and
forwarding all that may cut down the high rate of infant mortality.
By way of acknowledgment for what she received in America, she
gave a course of lectures at the International Institute on child hy-
giene, the result of her study in this country.

At present the Institute collaborates with the Junta and the Resi-
dencia by offering work not otherwise given and in initiating what
may later be taken over and carried on by them. Classes in English
are elected by many of the girls every year. Professor Mary Louise
Foster of Smith College has devoted three years to organizing a
chemistry laboratory, where modern methods and excellent technique
are acquired by the girls who wish to become physicians, pharmacists,
or teachers of science. By way of acknowledgment to her for thus
placing opportunities in chemistry for women on a par with oppor-
tunities for men, her students named the attractive new laboratory at
the Residencia the Laboratorio Foster and at her farewell reception
there placed a brass tablet at the entrance to the building in her
honor. There her assistants now carry on. Of the first class trained
by Miss Foster, eight received advanced degrees, four with honors,

Tue INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE AT MADRID 285

and one the Master’s degree from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the
University of Madrid. One has made the highest academic honor in
Spain, a fellowship in chemistry at the Alfonso XII Institute, valued
at a thousand pesetas and awarded in competition with men. Two
young women, who were already Seniors when Professor Foster first
opened her laboratory, now have well-established pharmacies and
their own laboratories in Malaga and Sevilla. One was given a
scholarship by Barnard College and spent twelve months in New
York, supplementing her college work with research in hospitals here.
She writes that that work has proved invaluable to her.

This year, in response to requests from leading Spaniards, our
Institute has opened a small Library School, under the direction of
Miss Mauda Polley of the University of California and Columbia,
thus supplying practical training for women who wish to enter this
profession. It is hoped that this small beginning may set in motion
larger library facilities in a country where circulating libraries are
unknown and where opportunities for reading may well be extended
to thousands who have not yet learned its pleasures.

Miss Polley writes:

The International Institute has now provided an excellent center for
the Residencia Library as well as additional accommodations for its
own original collection. Four rooms form a section to contain periodicals,
reference books, the Giner de los Rios Memorial Collection, and works
in literature, history, and fine arts. At the other side of the building
there are three rooms: a workroom and two seminar rooms for sci-
entific books. Excellent chairs and tables have been provided for the
reading-rooms. More than ten thousand volumes are now at the disposal
of users of the Library. In addition to the students of the Residencia,
who make constant use of the books in their studies and general reading,
the Library has a clientele from the outside, consisting of Spanish people
interested in America and in the English language and of Americans
who come to investigate special subjects such as the women’s movement
in Spain, to study Spanish, or to read new magazines or books in English.
In combining the two libraries the intent is to make books as accessible
as possible and to encourage a wider use of them. Miss Maeztu’s lec-
tures on Benavente, Shaw, and Galdés have been most stimulating. The
books mentioned by her are put on a table within easy reach and are much
read. The courses in Contemporary Spanish Literature and in English
also provoke a great deal of interest in the authors dealt with in class.

The Library also forms a practice field for the students of the class
in Library Management. They work out their practical problems, making

286 HISPANIA

use of the reference books and other Library equipment. The purpose of
the course is to acquaint them with the means of making a library of
most value to the public. Some of the class are experienced librarians
particularly interested in discussing American methods and adapting them
to their own work.

For the first time in Spain, graduate women are beginning this
academic year in a noble building devoted exclusively to them.
Memorial Hall at Miguel Angel, 8, is now in their hands for a three-
year experiment, as an auxiliary to the Residencia, under the joint
responsibility of the Junta para ampliacién de estudios and the Cor-
poration of the International Institute, whose Board of Directors
includes the stimulating Professor Federico de Onis of Columbia
University, President Pendleton and Katharine Lee Bates, of Wel-
lesley, President Comstock of Radcliffe, and some twenty other edu-
cators, under the able presidency of President Neilson of Smith
College.

We are all “Merchants of Light,” like the far voyagers in Lord
Bacon’s quaint account. Like them, we “maintain a trade, not for
gold, silver, or jewels; nor for silks; nor for spices; nor for any
commodity of matter, but only for God’s first creature which was
Light ; to have light of the growth of all parts of the world.”

Susan HuNTINGTON VERNON
Brooxiyn, New York

BASES AND TRAINING FOR DIRECT
INTERPRETATION IN FOREIGN-LANGUAGE
READING

The problems of silent reading have, for the past few years, been
occupying the attention of educational specialists. The results of
these investigations throw an entirely new light on what actually
takes place when one reads. It seems that reading is not so much a
harvesting of new ideas as it is a rearranging of old ideas. Reading
enlarges our horizon by permitting us to tap our stores of mental
experiences without having to resort to objective stimuli or to un-
aided constructive thinking. We see and feel and hear what the
writer sees and feels and hears, and a new arrangement of facts of
knowledge takes place and new knowledge, not always of value, re-
sults. We speak of the object of reading as one of getting informa-
tion through the printed page. This definition is true if we bear in
mind that the new information is merely a re-working of what we
already possess.

If the printed words do not stimulate any mental responses, no
new information is possible. Turkish symbols would fail to elicit
any response in most of us. If adequate responses are stimulated,
but their guided arrangement is not in conformity with our past ex-
periences, no new information is forthcoming. Perusing in our na-
tive language Einstein’s Theory of Relativity would, for most of us,
come under this heading.

Ordinary reading exacts very little thought on our part. The
writer’s purpose is usually to guide us along familiar experiences,
most often among those experiences that are tinged with an emo-
tional content, hence most vital to us. No problem is usually in-
volved ; we are merely permitted to roam under the writer’s guidance
amid the scenes of our individual pasts. Incidentally we see new rela-
tions as we pass along, but they are usually most obvious ones.

When the writer wishes us to change our viewpoints or to take us
out of our more restricted spheres into his broader field, he tries to
induce constructive thinking on our part. He leads us to compare
hitherto uncompared experiences, and to arrive thus at absolutely
new knowledge. This latter type of reading is really not reading at
all; it is study ;* it is one of the purposes to which reading may be

1Cf. Judd and Buswell’s Monograph on Silent Reading, University of Chi-
cago Press.

287

288 HISPANIA

put after it is well mastered. Clearly such reading has no part in
training students to learn to read any language.

The two things necessary to reading are this stock of inner mean-
ings capable of being stimulated and reorganized within, and a thor-
ough acquaintance with the visual signs employed as objective cues
to inner meaning. We have come, through long association, to con-
nect these arbitrary visual signs with meaning. As finished readers
we are not at all conscious of the words themselves ; they are merely
cues that stand for mental possessions which seem to require tangible
signs in order to function. By means of these labels of meaning a
sufficient number of vague conceptual values are brought together
to enable the reader to marshal them into a concrete thought. The
system of sequence and the peculiar arrangement of the words are
also matters of unconscious habit. When engaged in reading, our
attention is not focused on any of these external stimuli, each of
which functions so smoothly as not to call attention to itself, leaving
all mental activity free to work with what is stimulated within. But
in the process of acquisition, these tangible cues of thought manipu-
lation had to occupy the center of attention, and they became auto-
matic in function only after long periods of conscious attention to
them as such.

Based on a more accurate knowledge of what goes on in reading,
methods of teaching reading of the vernacular have been improved
to a marvelous degree. Reading as a mastered art and the training
for that art are now clearly differentiated. During the period of
training, the attention is squarely focused on the symbols themselves,
with no other idea in mind except that of fitting the reader to connect
these visual signs with his stock of meanings. Meaning is made to
guide in this connection by having the class first work over the story
orally. The students know what the content is before they attempt
to read it; and as their eyes travel along over the written form of
the sentences, meaning tends to seize upon the printed words as
carriers.

As soon as an acquaintance is made with a limited number of
visual signs, this type of drill that makes meaning lead and guide is
substituted for the opposite type in which the printed words are made
to call up meaning. Attention is now shifted from form to content.
Meaning, instead of being aroused by other media, is now trained to
be touched off by these very visual signs. Before these half-learned
visual signs of meaning may function efficiently, ample drill, pro-

ry rm SB OO Oo RM SP OS w

Direct INTERPRETATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 289

gressively increasing in difficulties, must be provided for this pur-
pose. At first, difficulties must be minimized and limited. To meet
these initial needs, reading matter involving the most simple facts of
experience, and couched in known words repeatedly used, serves as
drill matter. External aids to interpretation, such as illustrations,
pictures, and drawings, also tend to assist. Since meaning is easily
apprehended by the oral and articulatory phase of these same printed
words, students are encouraged to enunciate as they read. Enuncia-
tion is gradually dispensed with as an unnecessary step after due
practice is had in connecting the printed forms of the words with
meaning, and direct interpretation is gradually acquired.

Strange as it may seem, no similar improvements in the methods
of teaching students to read a foreign language have resulted from
these investigations of the problems involved in reading. It is now
the purpose of this paper to attempt to show wherein the learning
to read a foreign language is like that of learning to read the ver-
nacular and wherein it is radically different.

It is an evident fact that the ultimate object in reading a foreign
language is the same as that of reading one’s native language, viz., to
get thought guidance from the printed page.

We may also be sure that the same two requisites are necessary :
(1) a stock of inner meanings; (2) sufficient acquaintance with their
symbols of expression that they may function automatically.

It is likewise obvious that we should clearly differentiate the read-
ing of the foreign language as a mastered art and the training for the
mastery of that art.

The one outstanding difference and what it involves will now be
discussed, and finally there will follow a suggested technique of pro-
cedure that the writer believes will conform to the necessities in-
volved.

When we learned to read our native language, we had as a foun-
dation on which to build: (1) a stock of meanings trained to group
themselves according to a well-known and definite pattern; (2) an
auditory and an articulatory acquaintance with the symbols of ex-
pression. Our problem then was merely one of a substitution of
imagery. Both of these foundation stones are lacking when we come
to read a foreign language. We have no acquaintance whatsoever
with the symbols of expression. Wholly new symbols must be
learned, and the new manner of connecting them into an ordered
series must be mastered.

i

pt fn? SS

———

2 a ARM EGE atta inde Bob Pg ~

290 HISPANIA

The symbols of a foreign language do not always show the same
extension of meaning as do those with which we have been accus-
tomed to deal. A cross-section clothed in the foreign-language signs,
and a corresponding cross-section clothed in native-language signs
show many minor discrepancies. It seems that the only thing we can
always count on as being common to the two languages is that larger
unit of measure, hard to define, but possibly best expressed by calling
it “a complete thought.” To illustrate by an extreme case, hace viento
calls up in the mind of a Spanish-speaking individual the same ex-
perience as does “It is windy” in the mind of one who speaks Eng-
lish ; yet the separate words of the expressed thought of the former
do not correspond either in content or in arrangement to the separate
words of the latter. In nearly every expressed thought in the re-
spective languages will there be many such discrepancies due to
inflections and syntactical usage.

The difficulties, due to this lack of an exact unit of commensura-
bility, are so numerous and so hard to surmount that they, apparently,
should be attacked singly and partially mastered before any attempt
is made to teach reading. All are agreed that the student must know
in advance what inflections mean and must have a working acquaint-
ance with the principal rules of the foreign syntax before he can
begin to read with any understanding.

In order to lay a secure foundation for direct interpretation of the
reading of the foreign language, the writer believes that the teaching
of reading should be divided into two separate and distinct phases:
(1) a preparatory period during which the meaning is made to illu-
minate form and structure of the foreign words in their capacity as
meaning carriers; (2) after a limited nucleus of foreign words is
thus mastered, a longer period of training must be allowed during
which this limited stock of words is trained for the calling up of
meaning while new words are continually being added in the process.

A preparatory period leading up to actual reading is necessary
because the first requisite is to acquaint the student with the words
and series of words actually used by the foreign language in express-
ing thought. Interpreting the thought involved is not yet the goal
of endeavor. The tools with which to work are the important thing
at this beginning stage of learning. If the thought itself is made an
object of search, we are withholding from the student the one thing
needed in throwing the spotlight on the manner in which the thought
is expressed. It is enough for the student to have to master the new

Drrect INTERPRETATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 291

dress of the thought, but if both the thought and its dress are un-
known quantities, to say the least, we are trying to take advantage
of the innocent student.

Apparently the only possible way to make the thought expressed
by the foreign sentence guide and lead in the mastery of the com-
ponent parts of the foreign dress is to express this thought outright,
ie. to translate for the student.

Such a procedure violates all traditions of teaching reading of a
foreign language, but getting away from learning the abc’s a few
years ago also violated time-honored traditions in learning to read
the vernacular.

No one can justify our actual procedure of setting beginners, un-
aided, to interpret a story in the foreign language. Even the direct
methodist, with all his misguided ingenuity, knows better than this;
he, at least, utilizes words cognate to English. But we conservatives,
who pride ourselves on having both feet on the ground, give the stu-
dent a puzzle to solve in demanding that he dig out the content. We
have arbitrarily assumed that searching for meaning is conducive to
the mastery of the vocabulary. What ground have we for supposing
that in decoding a secret message the student will appropriate to his
use the foreign words? As he laboriously thumbs the vocabulary,
striving to select a fitting equivalent of each word that may dovetail
into the meaning of preceding words, he does fixate on each foreign
word, but this focusing of the attention on the separate words leads
nowhere until he finds out this necessary equivalent. Just as soon
as this equivalent is located, the foreign word is disregarded as super-
fluous, the series of English equivalents being held in mind as he
strives to fill in the gaps necessary to complete his English thought.
Only during that one fleeting moment of the actual comparison of
the foreign word and its English equivalent is the drill of such a
nature that it tends to induce any sort of symbol transference.

The lack of drill that might tend toward symbol transference is
not the worst feature of the current system. The fact that we force
the student to begin on the wrong end of thought structure is even
worse. We strive to make him build up from small component parts
to a larger whole. This is the same fallacy that lay behind the learn-
ing of the abc’s as a basis for reading the vernacular. Language in
use does not function in this Aristotelian fashion. A concrete unit
of thought is not the sum total of smaller units consciously brought
together and solidified into a whole, but it is rather a grasping of two

LTE TN

me

sia]
f
t

EP eas
ee

292 HISPANIA

or more words as a ready-made unit. Obviously, analysis of the
larger unit should precede any attempt to build it up from its smaller
component parts. If the student is forced to synthesize before he
analyzes, his product must be largely a matter of guess work, and
analysis is possible only when the complete thought is made the point
of attack.

Let us digress a moment in order to answer a possible objection
of the direct methodist, who in all probability will claim that his use
of words cognate to English solves the problem without having to
resort to translation at all. Let it be said in answer that translation
does not have to be articulated to be a translation; it may be wholly
internal and still be a translation just the same. The loose thinking
usually indulged in at this point is due to the failure to take into con-
sideration that apprehension of thought entails the use of symbols.
No matter how meaning may be aroused in consciousness, it cannot
apparently be grasped apart from verbal sign. In case a word cognate
to English does arouse meaning through its similarity to an English
word, the meaning thus aroused will undoubtedly manifest itself
through the English word, which has always heretofore been its un-
failing counterpart. Since this meaning has always clothed itself in
this English word, there is no reason to suppose that it will not do
so in this particular case. Repeated associations of meaning with this
new interloper will be required before the latter can act instead of
the old symbol. The English word will gradually become superfluous
as the foreign word is trained to serve as a tangible cue of manipu-
lation ; but before it can function as an absolutely independent mean-
ing carrier it must become disassociated from its English equivalent.
This is just the difficulty with using cognate words at this stage of
progress ; their very similarity to English words makes it so easy to
disregard them and use the accustomed English word suggested by
them as thought counters that no drill is had in making them func-
tion independently.

The gain of arousing meaning without having to express it out-
right in English is certainly offset by the loss entailed in not being
able to train these cognate words to stand alone. In other words, in-
stead of necessitating one clear-cut translation, as do words wholly
different in appearance from their English equivalents, words cog-
nate to English continue to involve a mental translation.

Direct interpretation implies the use of the foreign words as sole
cues of meaning without resorting to the use of native words as

>t —/ (OD “ CD

. = a Vy

’ “=

‘7

Drrect INTERPRETATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 293

carriers. It cannot be done unless the thought processes are taking
place through the medium of the foreign language. If the words
comprising this basic vocabulary cannot function independently of
English words, there will be no possibility of thinking in the foreign
language when we come to take up interpretative reading.

Some teachers seem to believe that the only requisite needed to
perform the drastic miracle of inducing their students to think in the
foreign language is to withhold native-language words, and that the
foreign words, whether clearly understood or not, will somehow
(they do not explain how) replace the corresponding native-language
words as meaning carriers. Some even go so far as to imply that the
process may be reversed, that new foreign words may actually arouse
meaning without the intermediary of native-language words. One
could see how rapid actions (too limited in scope to justify the use of
a method based on them) accompanied by foreign words descriptive
of what was taking place might possibly be thought through by be-
ginning students without the interjection of many native-language
words ; but when the process is reversed, when these new and untried
foreign words are supposed to call up meaning, it is obvious that they
can do so only by identifying themselves with meanings’ usual signs,
which are native-language words.

The corollary resulting from this argument would apparently
suggest that little or no active use of the foreign language (answering
questions, interpretative reading, etc.) should be attempted until
ample drill of a passive nature shall have provided a fairly close con-
nection radiating from meaning to foreign word.

To return to the matter of the advisability of illuminating mean-
ing for the student who is taking up reading, let us contrast the cur-
rent plan of procedure of making him search for meaning with that
of giving him meaning outright and then drilling him along lines that
are apparently more conducive to desired results.

Knowing what the series of foreign words means, the student is
in a position to focus his attention on the words themselves. Instead
of being hidden from him, meaning, the one thing now needed before
he can advance another step, is staring him in the face. His task is
one of analysis of the foreign sentence into its component parts.
Knowing the complete thought does not insure his knowing the inter-
relations of the foreign manner of expression, but it does enable him
to work through the intricacies found therein. He will still have to
look up some words, and he will certainly have to bring into function

294 HISPANIA

his knowledge of the grammar of the foreign language before he can
understand how this foreign sentence can stand just for the particu-
lar thought he has in mind. As he holds this thought before him, and
works over the foreign sentence ever present to his senses, he is
engaging in a drill that tends to link the foreign words with meaning.

If the student is relieved of translation there is still plenty for
him to do. The teacher may take a unified section of the foreign
sentence and ask for its meaning in English. He may draw out how
the various inflectional forms used are rendered in English. Lastly,
he may demand a word equivalent of separate words. Aside from
such questions depending upon analysis, the teacher may demand an
active acquaintance with the foreign words. Students may be asked
to write certain assigned sentences from dictation. Simple question
and answer may be engaged in. Students may be asked to form ques-
tions based on the text. Paraphrasing the language of the text, mak-
ing it more simple, may be assigned as a written lesson if enough
grammar has been covered to warrant it. If each student is asked
to summarize a given paragraph, these written summaries read aloud
at the next recitation form an excellent summary of the whole story.
In a short time, oral summaries in the foreign language can be
brought out in the same manner. Relieved of the burden of trans-
lation, there will be plenty of time left to devote to these and other
active phases of using the foreign language as a unit of expression,
basing each on the known models.

This preparatory period of training in reading a foreign language
corresponds to the elementary stages of learning to read the vernacu-
lar when oral rendering precedes and paves the way for reading. It
is really not reading at all, but getting ready to read. In order to
differentiate it from reading in the true sense of the word, it might
be called “illuminated reading.”

As soon as an acquaintance is made with a limited vocabulary
with content illuminating form and structure of words, the efforts
may be directed to training the students to use the foreign language
as a tool of acquisition of knowledge. Attention to what the foreign
words stand for may now supplant the emphasis previously placed
on the words themselves. In order to meet this need, drill must be
provided that will tend to make this small stoek of language units
call up meaning. Obviously the difficulties are too great to expect any
unusual degree of perfection of results at the very beginning. The
way must be smoothed, and all obstacles removed whenever possible.

Drrect INTERPRETATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 295

The reading matter must be of the simplest kind. Simple reading
matter in a foreign language is material: (1) the thought of which
is simple and uninvolved; (2) the vocabulary of which is largely a
mixture of known words and words cognate to English words com-
monly used by students; (3) the sentence structure of which is
simple and short, involving the least possible number of idiomatic
turns that differ from English.

Beginning reading matter for interpretative purposes may well
deal with fables, myths, legends, and well-known stories, the general
content of which is already familiar to the student. Other legitimate
aids in deciphering meaning are illustrations, pictures, and drawings.

The main object to be stressed in interpretative reading is, of
course, interpretation of content, but this drill should be such that
leads gradually to a direct interpretation without the intermediary of
native-language words. There is necessarily a lingering shadow of
English words in the background of consciousness when interpreta-
tive reading is first taken up. We cannot perform a drastic miracle
here, boldly substituting once for all new cues that supplant outright
old and tried cues that have served the student faithfully up to this
point. Our only hope is to work this substitution in a gradual manner
by bringing about conditions that serve in an ever increasing degree
to make unnecessary the employment of native-language symbols of
thought. If sufficient preparatory drill has been had on the stock of
known words, when the neural impulse traveled from meaning to
word, the opposite type of drill in which the word is expected to call
up meaning may now be trained to function.

In the initial stages, we must not accentuate that inherent tend-
ency to clothe meaning in native-language words. On the contrary,
it must be discouraged in every possible way. The problem seems to
be impossible of realization. (1) Our object is to drill the student in
getting the thought content involved with as little utilization of
native-language words as possible. (2) As a check on interpretation,
we must have the student express this content, but his knowledge of
the foreign language is obviously insufficient for him to express it
in the foreign language. If we demand that he translate the selection
into English, we only encourage the tendency to disregard the foreign
words and to clothe the thought as usual, in his native-language
symbols.

But there is a solution. This dilemma can be met by having the
student give a free summary in English rather than a translation. If

296 HISPANIA

a word-for-word comparison of the two separate manners of thought
expression is avoided, this newly born and as yet slight connection
leading from foreign word to meaning is not necessarily weakened,
as it surely is when we permit each foreign word to fade out of con-
sciousness by giving expression to the corresponding equivalent
English word so ready and eager to assume its customary function.
In a summary, the thought in its entirety is expressed, and often in
words that do not correspond at all to the foreign words used.

If we follow the plan outlined so far, even though we have done
nothing to thwart the possibility of embryonic thinking in the for-
eign language, yet we have not done much to foster it. By avoiding
the expression of native-language words we have prevented their
becoming focal in consciousness. It is now fitting that we strengthen
this slender bond of connection between meaning and foreign word.
Rapid, silent reading is clearly conducive to this end, for it tends to
link these ever present foreign words with meaning. The trouble
with silent reading is that there is no effective and immediate check
on it. The teacher will have to convince the students that it is worth
while. Increased facility in interpretative reading will in time show
which students have been practicing it. The teacher should also read
aloud selections that have been worked over by the class. Oral read-
ing, on the part of the students, while involving more than interpre-
tative reading, should also be utilized occasionally.

As progress is made, the students may be required to give a sum-
mary in the foreign language of a story assigned with this end in
view. Neither this nor the oral reading should however be used
except for the purpose of breaking the monotony, for they are not
at all necessary to interpretative reading. If summaries are required
only in English much more reading matter can be covered, and, after
all, the purpose of interpretative reading is to guide the student in
training the foreign words to call up meaning, and the more practice
he has in this one thing the more efficient will he become.

Reading material of increasing complexity and introducing grad-
ually a more extended vocabulary may be used to prepare the student
to read at last standard works.

Before leaving the interpretative phase of training in early read-
ing, the problem of translation must be discussed in more detail be-
cause it is inextricably interwoven with interpretation. Our thinking
is often muddled by being forced to use the word “translation” in
three distinct senses: (1) It is made to designate that purely mental

Drrect INTERPRETATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 297

activity of embodying meaning with native-language words as was
discussed in connection with the use of cognates. In this sense, there
is no solving of a problem nor is there any outward expression in-
volved. (2) It means also an analysis of a difficult construction
which defies the reader’s interpretation until he has taken it apart in
the foreign language and put it together again in his own language.
This use of the term should be called “deciphering” because the so-
lution of a definite problem is involved. (3) Lastly, translation im-
plies that skill in turning thought expression from one language to
another which in the initial stages of learning always means turning
the matter from the foreign language to the vernacular. In this sense,
it involves not only an ability to interpret readily but also a facility
in expressing the thought in one’s own language.

Used in the first sense, translation seems to be an absolutely neces-
sary initial bond of union between foreign words and meaning. It
goes on whether we will it or not, and can be dispensed with only by
degrees as direct connection is forged through adequate drill that
tends to make the native word superfluous.

Deciphering is likewise necessary at times. Difficult constructions
have to be analyzed before meaning can be tapped, but early reading
matter should not require its use at every turn, because it holds up
the whole machinery of symbol transference.

It is concerning translation used in the third sense of the term
that we differ violently. Some teachers use it as a sole exercise in
reading ; others banish it entirely. All must admit that it is a highly
important phase of language study, but it is altogether probable that
a too early use of it retards direct interpretation in reading. The
writer believes that it has its due place, but that it should be taught as
a separate objective of study, entirely apart from interpretative read-
ing. His opinion is that it should not be used as an aid to interpreta-
tive reading, but as something that may grow out of it. In other
words, students should be trained to turn into English what they al-
ready know in the foreign language, instead of learning the foreign
language through this means. It should be taught only after a fair
degree of ability in interpretative reading is attained so that it will
not interfere with the efforts to induce thinking in the foregn lan-
guage. If the reading matter to be translated has been worked over,
translation is merely a matter of drill in turning whole thought units
into the vernacular. It can be done at sight after a little practice.

Beginning texts carrying out the ideas set forth would necessarily

298 HISPANIA

have to utilize a generous mixture of words cognate to English, be-
cause it would not be wise to postpone interpretative reading until a
vocabulary sufficient to all needs should be acquired. But the use of
cognate words in conjunction with known words for interpretative
reading is quite a different matter from using cognate words ex-
clusively as initial reading material for the acquirement of a basic
vocabulary.

There is no doubt of the fact that when cognate words are
mingled with known foreign words there will be less tendency to
look beneath the veneer of their form and grasp them as English
words, because the known foreign words now carry the thought. The
student is used to the foreign-language manner of expression through
his previous illuminated reading, and all words conforming to the
general structure of the foreign-language forms now tend to be
accepted as additional foreign-language units because the foreign
aspect of such words fits in with the structure and general appear-
ance of the known words now carrying the thread of the story.

Even though the meaning of cognate words is unconsciously
grasped through their similarity to English words, there is no harm
in utilizing them here as extra pegs on which to string thought.
Through their use the known foreign words have a chance to func-
tion, and this is now our main problem. Their use would here be
justified for this sole reason even if one had to admit that there is
no indication of their being taken over as actual foreign-language
units, or that they served any functon that would not be served by
substituting for them outright English words. With the necessarily
limited stock of known foreign words there seems to be no other
possible way to clothe thought in the foreign-language symbols. If
reading matter is composed of this nucleus of known words and a
reasonable mixture of cognate words, new foreign words that are not
cognate to English words may be mastered by the context. If we
preclude entirely the use of cognate words, this latter possibility is
greatly reduced.

In this connection, the writer makes bold to suggest a new device,
a device that he has never tried out, but one that should, on theoreti-
cal grounds, be of value as an initial step in training students in in-
terpretative reading, and one that apparently would require very little
preliminary training in illuminated reading. This plan consists of
utilizing a reading selection made up of a mixture of English and
foreign words arranged after a systematic manner. At the very be-

Drrect INTERPRETATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 299

ginning, sufficient English words would be used to carry the train of
thought ; and the foreign words, printed in boldface type, would be
used only where no doubt of the meaning was involved. To be sure,
the foreign words would at first be mentally translated, since the
thinking would be going on in English; but the attention forcibly
focused on the foreign words as visible carriers of a clear-cut mean-
ing certainly would be conducive to linking them definitely with this
meaning. Repeated encounters with these same foreign words, as the
reading matter gradually utilizes an ever increasing percentage of
foreign words, ought certainly to pave the way for their taking over
the duty of independent meaning carriers.

It is highly probable that thinking may be done with a mixture of
native and foreign language symbols. The foreign words may act at
first after the manner of newly learned native-language synonyms
that replace older variants of certain thought expressions. If this be
the case, then such a procedure in reading would certainly be a short-
cut because it clearly facilitates this twofold thinking.

If, on the other hand, the train of thought once started in a given
language is carried to its completion only in that same language, this
suggested plan of reading is still as effective as is any other type. We
know of no other way of getting a complete meaning across to a
beginning student except by having him grasp it through his native
language. Clearly, the less obvious is this apparently necessary cloth-
ing of meaning in his native language, the more readily may the
foreign words take over this function. If English words are present
to the senses, either in their visual or in their oral phase, they natu-
rally assume a greater sway than they would if they could be reduced
to a mere subconscious manifestation, as is the case in this mixed
type of reading.

The writer does not present this device as the central theme of
his paper ; it is merely a suggestion, the details of which he has not
yet worked out. Further analysis of it might possibly show that it is
wholly impracticable.

To summarize the gist of this argument in a more dogmatic
manner :

I. An adaptation of proven methods used in teaching children to
read the vernacular should apparently be applicable to teaching
students to read a foreign language.

1. By postponing interpretative reading until an acquaintance is
is made with a limited vocabulary to be used as a nucleus.

300

HISPANIA

2. By making a knowledge of the content guide in mastering
this limited stock of words.

3. By making initial interpretative reading very simple so that
it may be as nearly a direct interpretation as possible and not
conscious translation.

4. By having the class read a large amount of this simple ma-
terial so that recognized words may be trained in calling up
meaning and new words learned through the obvious context.

II. Direct interpretation in reading a foreign language is a matter
of gradual growth, being absolutely impossible during the initial
stages, and capable of realization only as the foreign words grad-
ually supplant native words as tangible cues of meaning.

III. Current methods of teaching foreign-language reading appar-
ently thwart all tendencies that might further this end:

1. Hiding meaning from the student and making the reading
content a puzzle to be solved, as is done in the translation
method, is not conducive to the realization of this end, be-
cause :

a)

b)

c)

d)

e)

It involves no training in making the foreign words in-
dependent meaning carriers.

It ignores the only common bond of connection between
the separate systems of thought expression, i.e. the com-
plete thought.

It begins at the wrong end of the thought unit in that it
first focuses the attention on accidence and syntax, mak-
ing synthesis precede analysis.

It rivets more firmly that innate tendency to clothe all
apprehended meaning in native-language symbols by forc-
ing the student to express the meaning in his native lan-
guage.

It leaves no time for drill of a nature that would tend to
link meaning and foreign word.

2. Trying to establish an initial direct connection by utilizing
words cognate to English, as in the direct method, is even
less conducive to positive results, because :

a)

The central idea of this method is fallacious in that it
claims that meaning can, in the absence of training, be
apprehended without the intermediary of the vernacular.
Meaning and native word are counterparts of the same

Drrect INTERPRETATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE 301

ng thing, and meaning necessarily calls up native word until
the latter can be supplanted by foreign word.

at b) The very similarity of the respective symbols of expres-

10t sion causes foreign word to be disregarded, thus affording
no training in supplanting because inner translation con-

1a- tinues to function.

up c) No basis can be laid for embryonic thinking in the for-

xt. eign language (which is a sine qua non of direct interpre-

er tation) because it is practically impossible to dissociate

ial the foreign word from its English equivalent.

d- d) The direct method (when based on a reading selection
consisting of words cognate to English) violates two of

sin the basic principles violated by the translation method:

i. It ignores the complete thought as a starting point.
ii. It makes synthesis precede analysis.

on IV. The following plan would seem to meet the needs as outlined :
e- 1. A preliminary period should be devoted to the study of in-

flectional forms and syntactical usages before reading is at-
n- tempted.

2. Reading proper should be prefaced by a preparatory period
en of illuminated reading during which translation is done for
n- the student so that a basic foreign vocabulary can be built up

as soon as possible.
it a) Because the object here is not to use the foreign language
k- as a tool of acquisition but to learn its forms.

b) Because it utilizes as a go-between the complete thought
all unit.
c- 3. The drill engaged in during this period of illuminated read-
n- ing should be first one of analysis followed by exercises of

an active nature that may rivet the connection between mean-
to ing and foreign word.

4. Initial interpretative reading, in which getting content is
ig stressed, should be based on reading matter simple enough to
“n make translation unnecessary, and the quantity of material

covered should be stressed rather than difficulties of inter-
it pretation.
be 5. Later interpretative reading should be well graded so as to
r. lead the student gradually toward the goal of being able to

ne read standard literary works. At no point should the diffi-

302

HISPANIA

culties be so numerous as to make “deciphering” a matter of
necessity in every line.

. Summarizing rather than translating may serve as a check on

preparation.

. Silent reading is the best type of drill to strengthen the con-

nection between foreign word and meaning, but oral reading,
summarizing in the foreign language, question and answer
may well be used as a sideline on specially prepared passages.

. Translation should be taught as a separate objective only after

some degree of skill in interpretation has been gained, utiliz-
ing for this purpose previously prepared material.

. The writer wishes to call attention to the plausibility of using as
a reading selection matter composed of a mixture of English
and the foreign language.

Co.Liey F. SPARKMAN

UNnIversity oF WYoMING
LARAMIE, WYOMING

HONOR TO MR. HOOVER IN BUENOS AIRES

When the President, as plain Mr. Hoover, North American citi-
zen, visited Buenos Aires, the great daily La Nacién published on De-
cember 13, 1928, a special edition’ which was intended as a personal
tribute and a response of “good will” to the distinguished visitor. It
contained the greatest variety of information concerning the United
States as well as the activities of our citizens in the Argentine Re-
public. A few titles chosen from the many will give some idea of the
immense mass of material which the issue contained: “La evolucién
de la arquitectura norteamericana”; “Aviadores de la Unidn”; “La
camara de comercio,” referring to the organization and work of the
United States Chamber of Commerce in Buenos Aires; “La accion
norte americano en el norte argentino,” a whole page with pictures
describing the oil production near Salta. “Los comienzos del inter-
cambio” tells the story of the first merchant vessels from our ports to
Buenos Aires in 1810.

Of more immediate interest to the readers of H1sPANIA were two
very long articles, replete with facts, “Como se estudia en los Estados
Unidos,” by Ernesto Nelson, and “Universidades norteamericanas,”
by José A. Saralegui. The former was divided into two parts, one
about classical languages and literatures, the other dealing with Ro-
mance languages and literatures, especially Spanish. It would seem
that the author had before him the catalogues of all our universities,
since he omitted no names either of institutions or individual profes-

sors. The following paragraphs will give samples of the method and
content:

La Universidad norteamericana ha tenido el alto mérito de hacer
florecer en el Nuevo Continente el gajo de la cultura greco-romana que
Cambridge le transmitiera, arrancado del arbol secular de la cultura latina.
El arbol originario fué luego podado por las manos impacientes de los
herederos de esa cultura; y asi se da el raro caso de que mientras en
Europa los estudios clasicos se van rindiendo ante los ataques de las gentes
practicas, las “gentes practicas” de América acuden en multitudes juven-
iles, cada afio mayores, a abrevar en las fuentes de la cultura greco-latina.

Aunque pueda sonrojarnos un poco, debemos encontrar auspicioso el
hecho de que una civilizacién tan potente como la norteamericana tenga
por nticleo los estudios clasicos. Mientras en Francia, por ejemplo, de

1Supplied the editor by Professor David P. Barrows, University of Cali-
fornia.

303

304 HISPANIA

52,700 alumnos universitarios solamente 16,500 o el 31 por ciento, siguen
esos estudios, en los Estados Unidos de 665,000 alumnos universitarios,
328,000 o sea casi exactamente la mitad (y veinte veces mas que en
Francia) siguen estudios no profesionales a base de cultura clasica.

El equipo que para la ensefianza clasica poseen las universidades norte-
americanas sorprende al no iniciado en estos modalidades de la cultura de
los Estados Unidos. No nos ocuparemos, sin embargo, en esta resefia sino
de los aspectos puramente literarios, dejando los histéricos y artisticos
para mejor oportunidad.

Nueva York es un centro importante de estudios romanicos. Las
varias bibliotecas de la Universidad de Columbia contienen 60,850 voli-
menes concernientes a las lenguas y literaturas correspondientes, incluso
el provenzal. Lo referente a Espafia cuenta con el magnifico refuerzo de
la Hispanic Society, fundada, como se sabe, por un cultisimo protector de
estos estudios, Mr. Archer M. Huntington, quien ha formado uno riqui-
sima biblioteca, mapoteca y museo, a los que ha alojado en un palacio. Se
le deben también la Revue Hispanique las importantes Hispanic Notes
and Monographs y numerosas reproducciones de manuscritos y primeras
ediciones.

Harvard es casi tan rica como Columbia en obras referentes a lenguas
romances. Tiene 54,700, de las cuales 1,750 que tratan de la filologia de
esas lenguas y que se hallan reverentemente alojadas en la Lowell Me-
morial Library. La de Yale posee 30,000 voluimenes, y entre ellos dos
muy preciadas colecciones sobre Dante y Petrarca. Aparte de estas ulti-
mas, se dice que la biblioteca es una de las mas ricas en autores de
renacimiento latino.

La riqueza bibliografica de Princeton referente a idiomas y literaturas
romances es de 46,000 volimenes, de los cuales 6,000 corresponden a
literatura periéddica. Princeton es mentado por lo completo de su coleccién
de revistas del mundo latino. Ademas esa universidad se vanagloria con
su coleccién de 7,000 dramas franceses del siglo XVIII y principios del
XIX; de la coleccién Buffenoir, de 311 titulos referentes a Rousseau; de
la coleccién Le Brun sobre Montaigne y Rabelais, que se dice es unica, y
de una recopilacién completa de periddicos literarios del siglo XVIII.
Los egresados de 1890 donaron a su “alma mater” un fondo para el
enriquecimiento permanente de la Seccidn de Lenguas y Literaturas
Romances.

No faltan tampoco aqui las evidencias de trabajo de investigacién
original, que llenan las paginas de una copiosa literatura periéddica. Recor-
daremos la Romanic Review, dirigida por Gerig; los Studies in Romance
Philology and Literature; la Revista del Instituto de las Espatas (12

Honor To Mr. Hoover 1n BuENos AIRES 305

voluimenes ) ; la del Institute des Etudes Frangaises, el Bulletin of the In-
stitute of Italian Culture, el referente a la cultura rumana, todas publica-
ciones de Columbia. Harvard publica los Harvard Studies in Romance
Languages y las Notes on Philology and Literature; la Universidad Johns
Hopkins edita la Modern Language Notes, y la Johns Hopkins Publica-
tion on Romance Literature and Languages. Stanford publica Hispania ;?
California la Modern Philology, Chicago otra publicacién del mismo
nombre y la “University of Chicago Romanic Monographic Series”; la de
Pennsylvania, la “Series in Romanic Languages and Literature.”

While Sr. Nelson’s article discussed methods, courses, and pro-
fessors, Sr. Saralegui’s dealt with the physical properties of the uni-
versities and their sources of income:

En principio, la Universidad norteamericana considera que nada le
debe ser extrafio, y, por lo tanto, ofrece una diversidad de ensefianza que
sobrepasa a la de las cinco viejas facultades tradicionales de Europa, a
saber: las de teologia, derecho, medicina, ciencias y letras. Esta formada,
en efecto, por toda la ensefianza superior, desde el colegio clasico, las
escuelas superiores de estudio, de experimentacién y descubrimiento cien-
tifico (Graduate Schools of Arts and Sciences), hasta las llamadas
escuelas profesionales.

Una vez comprendido lo que es la Universidad norteamericana, se ex-
plica el crecido numero de las que existen en ese pais. Pasa de 600. Tan
solo en un 20% son del Estado, y las restantes, libres. A pesar de su ex-
trema desigualdad, existe entre ellas un espiritu general bastante uniforme.
Las grandes universidades, tales como las de Harvard, Columbia, Yale,
etc., son las que marcan los derroteros.

Sus recursos estan formados por la cuota de los alumnos, la valoriza-
cién de sus tierras y muy especialmente por los grandes y pequefios
legados con los millonarios y el pueblo norteamericano contribuyen volun-
tariamente. La universidad tiene alli una gran fuerza, y es que cobija
bajo su orientaciOn a todo el conjunto de la juventud. Cada dia esta mas
extendido el acercamiento de las escuelas profesionales o técnicas inde-
pendientes a las filas de la universidad, siendo una finalidad cientifica y
social alcanzar esta categoria.

2 The American Association of Teachers of Spanish will pardon the author
for the slip concerning the publisher of its journal Hispania. At least he knew
the name of the University correctly, a fact which many of our own daily papers
are not acquainted with. When a journal like the New York World locates the
institution in Oakland, as it did recently in referring to the appointment of the
President of Stanford University as Secretary of the Interior, we cannot criti-
cize an Argentine journalist harshly for slight mistakes. And there are remark-
ably few in the great mass of statistics in these articles.

306 HISPANIA

La universidad se ha creado asi la obligacién de formar en todas las
ramas de las actividades sociales lo mas selecto que debe producir una
educacion superior.

La estimacién y el respeto que por las universidades profesa el pueblo
son ejemplares y en todas las diferentes clases sociales se puede observar
esta influencia colectiva, tan beneficiosa. Bien conocida es la prodigalidad
de los acuadalados. Sus frecuentes y repetidas donaciones a esos institutos
han constituido ya una tradicién. Sdélo citaré los nombres de Rockefeller
y Carnegie, que figuran entre los mas grandes benefactores de numerosas
universidades. Rockefeller es el principal fundador de la Universidad de
Chicago, y en 1910, al hacerle una nueva donacién de 10 millones de
délares, decia: “Estimo, por una conviccién inicial y persistente, que esta
institucién, siendo propiedad del pueblo, debe ser fiscalizada, conducida y
sostenida por él. Yo he tenido solamente el placer de cooperar a los
generosos esfuerzos hechos para su edificacién.” Los donativos de este
ciudadano a la Universidad de Chicago pasan de 40,000,000 de dolares.

ANNOUNCEMENTS
COMMITTEE ON INFORMATION

This committee, authorized at the last annual meeting, has been con-
stituted as follows: Hymen Alpern, New York City; Wilfred A. Beards-
ley, Goucher College, Baltimore; William A. Clarke, New York City;
E. Herman Hespelt, New York University; G. W. H. Shield, Los Angeles
(ex officio); Henry Grattan Doyle, George Washington University,
Chairman.

FOR THE TOURIST IN SPAIN
Dear Mr. COoESTER:

In the October number of Hispania there was a suggestion to publish
“a list of hotels, Juntas de Turismo, or other places where guides or
pamphlets could be found” to help the tourist in Spain find easily places
of historical importance.

In my visit to Spain last summer I found that Spain, through the
municipalities of the most important cities, is trying to furnish foreign
visitors, and especially American teachers visiting the country, with
pamphlets and periodical publications to make their stay in Spain both
useful and comfortable.

All important cities have established Juntas de Turismo, where the
visitor will find, free of charge, information, literature, and all possible
help to visit important points of interest in the cities and adjoining re-
gions. The offices of the Fomento de Turismo at Valencia publish a
monthly magazine, Valencia Atraccién, especially for travelers, and it is
sent, I think, to anyone free of charge. Possibly similar publications ap-
pear in other cities.

For anyone visiting Spain for the first time it will be worth while to
pay a call to the local Junta or Sociedad de Turismo where he or she will
receive every assistance possible.

For the benefit of those who would be interested I am including a list
of all said Juntas, taken from the last number (January) of Valencia
Atraccién.

Very sincerely yours,

HERMENEGILDO CorBaTO
UNIVERSITY oF CALIFORNIA

Los turistas que deseen datos de las poblaciones espafiolas que quieran
visitar, podran dirigirse a las siguientes direcciones :
Alicante—Alicante Atraccién
Almeria—Patronato de Almeria. Ponencia del Turismo. Paseo del Prin-
cipe, 20
307

£9 SN EIS

308 HISPANIA

Barcelona—Atraccién de Forasteros. Rambla del Centro, 30
Bilbao—Centro de Turismo

Burgos—Fomento del Turismo

Cadiz—Sociedad de Propaganda de Turismo. Muelle
Castell6n—Seccién de Turismo del Ateneo Castellonese
Cérdoba—Oficina provincial de Turismo. Alfonso XIII, 18
Corufia (La)—Fomento del Turismo

Denia (Alicante)—Asociacién de Propaganda del Clima
Gerona—Atraccion de Forasteros

Gijoén—Feria de Muestras

Guadalajara—Junta Provincial de Turismo. Gobierno Civil
Huesca—Turismo del Alto Aragén

Jaca (Huesca)—Sindicato de Iniciativa

Jativa (Valencia)—Junta del Turismo. Ayuntamiento

Las Palmas—Fomento y Turismo de Gran Canaria
Leén—Secretaria de la Diputacién Provincial
Madrid—Patronato Nacional del Turismo. Alcala, 71
Malaga—Delegacién de Turismo. Palacio Municipal
Oviedo—Sindicato de Iniciativas y Turismo

Palma de Mallorca—Fomento del Turismo. Constitucién, 38
Reus—Asociaci6n de Iniciativas. Ayuntamiento
Sabadell—Sindicato de Iniciativas

Salamanca—Atraccién de Forasteros

San Sebastian—Centro de Atraccién y Turismo. Alameda, 14
Santander—Real Sociedad de Amigos del Sardinero
Segovia—Sociedad de Propaganda y Turismo
Sevilla—Comité de Iniciativas y Turismo. Ayuntamiento
Sitges—Atraccién de Forasteros

Tarragona—Sindicato de Iniciativas

Toledo—Centro del Turismo. Zocodover, 25
Valencia—Fomento del Turismo. Bajos del Ayuntamiento
Valladolid—Fomento del Turismo

Vigo—Fomento del Turismo. Principe, 39
Zaragoza—Sindicato de Iniciativa de Aragén. Estebanes. 1, 1°

CHAPTER NEWS

[Department conducted by Proressor Cony Sturcis, Chapter Adviser]

AKRON CHAPTER

On March 8 a very successful meeting of the Akron Chapter of the
American Association of the Teachers of Spanish was held at the
Woman’s City Club of Akron. At 6:30 o’clock in the evening the mem-
bers present sat down to dinner at a table made gay with Spanish appoint-
ments and colors.

At the close of the dinner, we had the pleasure of hearing our guest,
Professor Cony Sturgis, the Chapter Adviser, deliver a very interesting
address on present-day Spanish literature, which he illustrated by passing
around Spanish bound books of the authors discussed. After the address,
which was delivered in Spanish, Professor Sturgis and the members of
the Chapter held a general discussion on literature and the Spanish stage.

Mary A. PUSATERI
Secretary-Treasurer

COLUMBUS CHAPTER

The regular monthly meeting of the Columbus Chapter of the Ameri-
can Association of Teachers of Spanish was held on Saturday, March 2,
in Page Hall, on the Ohio State University campus. The time of meeting
was 10:30 a.m. A very interesting talk was given by Professor Hendrix
on “Some Phases of Becquer’s Literary Technique.” Professor Hendrix
correlated the first and second editions of the poet’s Rima V, dated 1866
and 1868, respectively. It was then shown that Mariano José de Larra’s
“El Espiritu y la Materia,” printed in 1853, was an important source of
the inspiration of Becquer, in his Rima V especially. After the formal
meeting, lunch was taken at the Faculty Club.

F. Dewey AMNER
Corresponding Secretary

DENVER CHAPTER

The January and February meetings of our Chapter were held on the
regular third Monday of the month at the Olin Hotel. We had enthusiastic
reports and descriptions of Detroit from our two members who attended
the national convention, Miss Batione and Miss Candor.

Mr. Wise, who spent three years in Brazil, treated us to some dulces
and explained how to make them. He described beautiful Rio de Janeiro,
told of the schools there and some of the customs of the people.

An interesting incident occurred when Mrs. J. Graham, who lives most
of the time in Europe, came to live near Denver. She does not talk

309

310 HISPANIA

Spanish but reads it, and has subscribed to H1sPANIA ever since she saw
a copy of it while visiting Columbia University. She read the account of
our Denver meeting in the February issue, came to our meeting, and
joined our Chapter. We thank Hispania for giving us an interesting and
valuable new member.
RosaALiz EpMISTON
Secretary

NEW YORK CHAPTER

The annual dinner-dance of the Chapter took place on February 2, at
the Men’s Faculty Club, Columbia University. Professor Moreno-Lacalle
was the speaker of the evening. In a brilliant and stirring address, he
emphasized the importance of making tolerance the guiding factor in all
our relations with our Hispanic-American neighbors, lest the Monroe
Doctrine lead to misunderstandings of the policies of the United States.

Mr. Louis Berkowitz, who for five years so excellently served the
Chapter as treasurer, and who is to spend a sabbatical leave abroad, was
presented by the Chapter with a beautiful traveling bag and a book in
which to record the “high spots” of his visit to Spain.

The regular monthly meeting of the Chapter was held on the ninth
of February at Columbia University. Dr. Felipe Barreda of the Univer-
sity of San Marcos, Lima, discussed in a most masterly fashion the sub-
ject of “Oportunidades del profesorado espaiiol y porvenir de su misién
en América.” The speaker began by pointing out that interest in the study
of Spanish in the United States was at first purely cultural, due to the
work of such men as Washington Irving, Longfellow, Ticknor, Lowell,
John Hay, and Prescott. After 1876, with modern languages as part of
the college curriculum, and the founding of the Modern Language Asso-
ciation in 1883, interest in Spanish was maintained.

The greatest impetus to the study of Spanish, however, was due to
commercial reasons. In 1906, Elihu Root, then Secretary of State, visited
South America. At about the same time also there was held a Commer-
cial Congress in Kansas City. Since then, the study of Spanish has been
increasing in proportion to our trade relations with the Hispanic-Ameri-
can countries.

Spanish in the United States has not yet fulfilled its mission, which,
according to the speaker, is a spiritual understanding of the two Americas.
Although language is an excellent instrument for psychological penetra-
tion, inter-American understanding has not yet gone far. In a large
measure this is due to publications in the United States which, while they
aim to tighten the bonds of friendship between the Americas, fail utterly
to impress the Hispanic-American people.

Dr. Barreda declared that the greatest problem of Hispanic-America

CHAPTER News 311

is neither religious nor political at present, but rather economic-social. It
is the problem of the economic prosperity of the great social masses, more
specifically the labor problem. In South America there occurred just
what took place in Europe and the United States after the World War:
namely, a new social class, the proletariat, acquired social consciousness.
The political unrest of the nineteenth century has now been replaced by
economic unrest, as the dynamic force of society. The prosperity of the
Hispanic-American proletariat depends not upon agrarianism, but upon
the conversion of Hispanic-America to industrialism. Dr. Barreda re-
ferred to Professor Butty, of the University of Buenos Aires, who main-
tains that the industrialization of Argentina is the real cause of that
country’s stable and effective national prosperity.

In conclusion, Dr. Barreda showed how the establishment of free
markets among the various South American countries would aid progress
mutually.

After Dr. Barreda’s lecture, the famous Peruvian Boy Scout, Augusto
Flores, was introduced. He gave a brief but vivid account of his 18,000
mile hike from Buenos Aires, telling of the many unique experiences,
among which figured the death of two companions and the desertion of
three others.

On March 9 the Chapter met at the School of Mines, Columbia Uni-
versity, at 10:30 a.m. After the usual routine matters had been considered,
the speaker, Sefiorita Nena de Belmonte, was introduced. As a member of
Spain’s aristocracy, the charming young lady was well qualified to speak
on the topic “El Rey Don Alfonso XIII.” Both she and her mother have
been personally well acquainted with His Majesty. The King was char-
acterized as “buen esposo y buen padre de familia.” His generosity and
democracy are evidenced by the fact that funds appropriated for personal
festivals are turned over very often to charity. Such acts account in part
for the popularity which the King enjoys among his subjects.

The meeting was concluded with a few remarks by Professor de Onis
pertinent to the spirit of democracy always shown by the present royal
family of Spain.

ANTOINETTE T. LANG
Corresponding Secretary

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA CHAPTER

The Northern California Chapter, American Association of Teachers
of Spanish, met on March 2, at St. Mary’s College, in the Moraga Valley,
Contra Costa County. Brother Lewis, President of the College, and
Brother Edward, a member of the Chapter, were genial hosts to the fifty-

one guests, who enjoyed the delicious luncheon which preceded the
meeting.

312 HISPANIA

In his address of welcome, Brother Lewis spoke of the fitness of the
setting for a meeting of teachers of Spanish. Situated in the beautiful
valley which bears the name of Juan de Moraga, the conquistador who
discovered it, the new buildings of this College of the Christian Brothers
are perfect in their Spanish architecture, every detail of patio, cloister,
tiling, reja, and Chapel a most harmonious setting. One part of the Col-
lege is set apart for a cloister for a group of Carmelite nuns who have
been expelled from Mexico, and who hear Mass in the beautiful Chapel
from behind a finely carven grille.

After luncheon and a tour of the buildings, the meeting was called to
order in the comfortable lounge of the main dormitory, where a cheerful
fire in the great fireplace added its welcome.

The president of the Chapter, Mrs. Laura Holmes Sproule, introduced
the speakers in the following program:

“UN RATO CON ALGUNOS ESPANOLES CONTEMPORANEAS”

1. “Apuntes sobre las siguientes obras del distinguido humorista
espafiol, Julio Camba: (a) Un Alfio en el otro mundo; (6b) La Rana
Viajera,”’ Sefiorita Matilde Ellies, del Departamento de Espajiol de Mills
College.

2. “La Leyenda Donjuanesca en el Siglo XX,” Sefior W. J. Berrien,
del Departamento de Espajiol de la Universidad de California (Berkeley).

3. “Canciones espafioles,” Sefiorita Helen Haist, maestra de espafiol
en Technical High School, Oakland.

Mary E. Peters
Secretary
NORTHWEST CHAPTER

On November 10, 1928, the first meeting of the year was held. After
a short business meeting the following program was enjoyed: “Impres-
sions of Everyday Mexican Life,” Miss Marguerite Schofield; “La
Literatura Contemporénea de Espatia,’ Mr. F. Sanchez, University of
Washington.

The following officers were elected for the year: President, Miss
Jeannette Perry; Vice-President, Mr. F. Sanchez; Secretary-Treasurer,
Miss Marguerite Schofield.

On January 26, 1929, a very interesting meeting was held in the Home
Economics Building of the University of Washington. Plans for the
presentation of the Spanish film, “El Nifio de las Monjas,” were discussed.
It has been decided that the picture be shown on February 28 at a local
movie house at a time convenient for students to attend.

The Chapter received enthusiastically the suggestion that we com-

memorate Cervantes Day with a dinner, inviting the Spanish consuls and
their wives.

CHAPTER News 313

Mr. William Wilson, of the University of Washington, was asked to
serve as chairman of a committee to work out plans for arousing greater
interest in the teaching of Spanish.

After the business meeting the following program was greatly en-
joyed: “Typical Spanish Songs,” Mr. Eduardo Garcia and his chorus; “A
Book Report in Spanish—One Pupil’s Interesting Experience,” Mrs.
Eleanor Iorns; “Mexican Art,” Mr. William Wilson.

At the January meeting of the Chapter, a reference was made to the
Spanish study and conversation club organized by Sefior José Torres,
which has regular weekly meetings. It was suggested that the Seattle
teachers seek professional credit for attendance at this club as equivalent
to the regular professional courses offered by the Seattle School Board.
A committee was appointed to wait upon the Superintendent, and the
request has already been granted. Many Seattle teachers are finding the
club work invaluable.

MARGARET SCHOFIELD
Secretary

WASHINGTON CHAPTER

A lecture in Spanish of much interest was given before the Washing-
ton Chapter of the A.A.T.S. on March 26, by a distinguished Spaniard,
scholar, and professor, Dr. Camilo Barcia Trelles, of the University of
Valladolid. Among those present were several Spanish diplomats, minis-
ters, and ambassadors, including the Spanish Ambassador and Dr. James
Brown Scott.

The meeting was opened with ah introductory address, and the speaker
introduced by the President of the Washington Chapter, who also pre-
sided—Sefior don Antonio Alonso of Madrid.

The title of the lecture was La Interpretacién de la Conquista de
América en la Espaitia del Siglo XVI. In the course of his lecture
Dr. Barcia Trelles spoke of the views held in the days of discovery and
conquest of America by the noted theologians and historians of the day,
such as Francisco de Vitoria and Juan Ginéz de Septlveda—the latter one
of the leading men of letters and casuists of the age—on “international
rights” and “the freedom of the high seas.” It was Septilveda who was
charged by the Emperor (Charles I of Spain and V of Germany) to
“fitly record the events of his reign.” It is interesting to know that on one
occasion at least, in 1519, in the presence of the Emperor Charles V, in a
discussion concerning the Indians of the New World, Sepulveda found
his match in that grand old man, “the protector of the Indians,” Fray Bar-
tolomé de las Casas.

Dr. Barcia Trelles is the official lecturer of the Instituto de las Es-
pafias, and is spending a year in this country under the auspices of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of various

314 HISPANIA

important organizations, such as, Catedratico de Derecho Internacional;
President of La Seccién de Estudios Americanistas; Professor of the
Academie de Droit International de la Haye, and Member and Founder of
the Associacién Francisco de Vitoria.
IsABEL SHARPE SHEPARD
Secretary pro tem.

I have had the pleasure of visiting two of the Ohio chapters recently,
the Columbus Chapter, and the Akron Chapter. At Columbus, I renewed
acquaintance with old friends, but was sorry to be there at a time when
some other official duties took so many high-school teachers away from
the meeting. The Akron Chapter gave me a most delightful time, with a
dinner of about twenty, a number of others coming in later for the
evening program. The Beacon Journal, one of the Akron papers, had
given some space to a little history of the Akron Chapter, giving pictures
of the president, Miss Rogers, and the secretary, Miss Pusateri, along
with the article. The encouragement of small local chapters of this type
seems to me very desirable, and we can certainly congratulate Miss Rogers
on her work.

This number of Chapter News contains a report from the Northwest
Chapter, centered at Seattle. This is the first report that Chapter News
has had from them since my incumbency, and completes official reports
published this year from eighteen different chapters, with Southern Michi-
gan, the nineteenth, having the equivalent to a report in its December
meeting, when it entertained the National Association. This changes the
number of active chapters from eighteen to nineteen, which is most
gratifying to all concerned.

On Saturday evening, March 16, a group of about fifty people met at
the Women’s City Club in Cleveland to form a Hispanic center for that
city. Mr. Morgan, a prominent lawyer and member of the state legisla-
ture, presided, and a permanent organization was effected. This is similar
to the Cercle Frangais of Cleveland, and should help materially in pro-
moting Spanish interests in Cleveland. The first visitor whom it is hoped
the Club may have as its guest is Sefior Saenz, the well-known statesman
of Mexico. Miss Coates and the others who were instrumental in starting
this center of Spanish culture are to be congratulated.

Two more school papers have been received, El Cohete, Organo del
“Centro Espafiol,” Hunter College of the City of New York, a four-page,
well-gotten-up publication, and El Romano, a quincenario, in its fifth year,
published by Los Angeles High School, Los Angeles, California. The
latter is also a four-page folder, of a smaller size than El Cohete.

Cony Sturcis
Chapter Adviser

OPINIONS

[Department conducted by Proressor Henry Grattan Doyte, Associate Editor]

THE PAN AMERICAN UNION AND LATIN AMERICAN MUSIC

The forty-fourth concert of Latin American music was given in the
Hall of the Americas of the Pan American Union at Washington on Tues-
day evening, April 2, 1929, under the sponsorship of Dr. Leo S. Rowe,
director-general of the Pan American Union, and the direction of Franklin
Adams, counselor of the Union. The concert was broadcast over a nation-
wide network of stations in the Columbia Broadcasting System as well as
from Station NAA, the United States Navy station at Arlington. A large
and representative audience was in attendance, and the occasion was es-
pecially graced by the presence of Mrs. Herbert Hoover. The program,
presented by the United Service Orchestra of ninety musicians from the
United States Army and Navy Bands under the alternate leadership of
Captain William J. Stannard of the United States Army Band and Lieu-
tenant Charles Benter of the United States Navy Band, was as follows:

E. Minseh, “Tnes El cc ois ce csdvavcven C. A. Silva (Argentina)
Unitep Service ORCHESTRA

2. Three Dances (By request)
a) “Masqueraders’ Dance”...M. de Adalid y Gamero (Honduras)
b) “Danan Tapes. wcnevé icecctiens Ernesto Lecuona (Cuba)
c) “Dance of the Cave Men”................. Justin Elie (Haiti)

UNITED SERVICE ORCHESTRA

3. Instrumental and Vocal Selections
a) Pasillo, “Fin de Semana” (Week-End)
Emilio Murillo (Colombia)
b) Bambuco, “El Enterrador” (The Grave Digger)
Colombian Folk Song
Co} Wea, “TR in os wvivinwdavacbiGen Luis A. Calvo (Colombia)
GonzaLo, Hector, AND Francisco HERNANDEZ, Colombian Trio

4. Piano Solos—Three Cuban Dances
a) “La Comparsa” (Carnival Group) ....Ernesto Lecuona (Cuba)
O) "A ME depacs ss cepecesncttuwde Ernesto Lecuona (Cuba)
C) “Rinse TOO in cs ccadewcccennsed Ernesto Lecuona (Cuba)
Ernestina Lecuona, Cuban Pianist
5. (By request)
a) Waltz Lento, “Recuerdo” (Remembrance)
Enrique Soro (Chile)

315

HISPANIA

b) “Indigenous Mayan Minuet”....Maestro Castillo (Guatemala)
> “Cage Dee. 6. sec cic ccecs Alberto M. Alvarado (Mexico)

UnitTep SERVICE ORCHESTRA

6. Vocal Solos
ET nen an sviacteaneynede E. Vigil Robles (Mexico)
OF I 6b 0 SUK is vs cs Caeencee sctsde Venezuelan Folk Song
c) “Recuerdas Tu” (Remember Thou?) ..Ernesto Lecuona (Cuba)

MarGarita Cueto, Mexican Soprano
ERNESTINA Lecuona, Accompanist
Fa. WHR oo cin ne bud ainaite aki wiank Luis Cluzeau Mortet (Uruguay)

I. Preludio (First rendition)
IV. Final

Un itTep SERVICE ORCHESTRA
8. Marimba Solos

4 ree Sanchez de Fuentes (Cuba)
b) “Sabia Vos” (Do You Understand?)....H. Sobrinho (Brasil)
me kg RRS RR Osman Perez Freire (Chile)

MASTER SERGEANT JOHN BauMAN, United States Army Band
WarRANT OFFICER THEODORE BINGERT, United States Army Band,
Accompanist

9. Piano Solos—Three Cuban Dances

ED Tee I. sin.k.0.0.0 66.00ees bes o+ta Ernesto Lecuona (Cuba)

b) “No hables mas” (Say No More)..... Ernesto Lecuona (Cuba)

CP a SEE, 6: 0.6 cdneceteibedenta Ernesto Lecuona (Cuba)
Ernest1na Lecuona, Cuban Pianist

10. Waltz, “Andalusia”............... Arnulfo Miramontes (Me-ico)

I. A Castle in Spain

II. Dance in the Market Place
III. Dulcinea Dreams
IV. Tale of the Troubadour

UNITED SERVICE ORCHESTRA

11. Instrumental and Vocal Selections
a) Bambuco, “Amaneciendo” (Sunrise) ..J. Escamilla (Colombia)
b) Pasillo, “Hay Una Luz” (There Is a Light)
Colombian Folk Song
c) Intermezzo No. 4.............+-06. Luis A. Calvo (Colombia)
HERNANDEZ BroTHers TRIO

12. a) Descriptive Selection, “Death of the Inca”
Carlos Valderrama (Peru)

OPINIONS 317

6) Danza, “Inca Step” .iseecscssscces Carlos Valderrama (Peru)
Unitep SErRvIcE ORCHESTRA

13. Vocal Solos

a) “Canto del Siboney”..............+. Ernesto Lecuona (Cuba)
b) “La Segadora” (The Reaper)..... E. Vigil y Robles (Mexico)
c) “Jardin Azul” (Blue Garden)...... Ernestina Lecuona (Cuba)

Marcarita Cueto, Mexican Soprano
ERNESTINA LEcuONA, Accompanist

“Star Spangled Banner”
UNITED SERVICE ORCHESTRA

In her account of the concert next day, Miss Helen Fetter, musical
critic of the Washington Star, said:

“The composer who received the most generous number of appear-
ances on the program was Ernesto Lecuona of Cuba, whose sister, Ernes-
tina, played two groups of his piano solos, including encores. Sefiorita
Lecuona played with facile style and Latin spirit. She also accompanied
the singer who, in her two groups, sang two of Sefior Lecuona’s songs,
and one, “Jardin Azul,” written by Sefiorita Lecuona. The orchestra also
played “Danza Espafiola,” written by this young man, who is considered
one of Cuba’s leading composers.

“Sefiorita Cueto won much applause with her high, flute-like voice and
clear Spanish diction.

“A feature of the evening was the playing of the Hernandez trio on
instruments that are typical of their country. They used the bandola,
harp-guitar (which at times sounded similar to a harpsichord), and the
tiple. Their singing of the folk songs in their groups was an additionally
pleasing feature. Their ensemble tone was well blended, unforced, and
true to pitch. They have mellow, pleasing voices. They also showed
mastery of that difficult Latin American rhythm known as the ‘pasillo.’

“The orchestra of ninety musicians is showing constant improvement.
The most pretentious number last night was Luis Mortet’s ‘Suite.’ It was
the first performance of this work by the Uruguayan composer in Wash-
ington. The two movements—prelude and finale—were given and show a
suggestion of influence perhaps of Richard Strauss, being of that school
in use of dissonance and complicated rhythms. Under Lieutenant Benter,
the orchestra acquitted itself well in this number last night.

“The most popular selection of the evening was the familiar “Yaqui
Dance,’ by Alvarado of Mexico. With its essentially barbaric theme, this
work, untouched with any suggestion of European style, won the heartiest
applause from the audience. It was repeated later in the evening.”

The Pan American Union concerts of Latin American music have won

318 HISPANIA

an international reputation, largely due to the fostering interest of
Dr. Leo S. Rowe and the unremitting efforts of Mr. Franklin Adams,
Equally important with the concerts is the work of the Army and Navy
musicians in developing a mastery of Latin American music here. A large
library of the original music and orchestral arrangements made under the
auspices of the Union and the Army Band has been collected, and will be
made available for musicians of other countries.

Because of its success as an interpreter of Latin American and Span-
ish music, the United States Army Band is being sent to the International
Exposition in Seville, where it will present a series of concerts in the
buildings of the American exhibit. The Band will leave New York on
May 4 and will probably arrive in Seville about May 11, returning late
in June.

Another interesting development growing out of the pioneer work of
Dr. Rowe and Mr. Adams is described in the following extracts from an
article in the Washington Post by Florence V. Kaiser:

“When the Pan American Union was granted the exclusive use of two
high frequencies, 6,120 kilocycles and 9,550 kilocycles, by the Federal
Radio Commission recently, the way was paved for an international ex-
change of good-will programs between this country and the South Ameri-
can nations. While these short waves have been granted primarily for the
purpose of transmitting the Pan American concerts held regularly in the
Hall of the Americas at the Pan American Building in Washington, to
our neighbors to the south, a much wider plan for their use is being
formulated. This is understood to be a further follow-up of President
Hoover’s good-will trip.

“These short waves have been designated as the ‘Pan American wave
lengths’ and a plan is now being worked out by which the twenty-one na-
tions forming the Pan American Union may divide the time, so that each
nation in turn may prepare and transmit a program for the benefit of the
other twenty countries.”

Music, like all the arts, has a universal appeal. Those who are work-
ing in other fields of international endeavor owe a tribute of praise and
fellowship to Dr. Rowe, to Mr. Adams, and to the splendid musicians of
the two service bands under the capable leadership of Captain Stannard
and Lieutenant Benter, for the effective and enduring work that they are
doing.

Henry Grattan DoyLe
Tue Georce WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Wasarncron, D.C.

PEDAGOGICAL JOURNALS

[Department conducted by Proressor ArtHur L. Owen, Associate Editor]

Modern Language Journal, XIII, 5, Feb—I. L. Silberberg, “Scientific
Pedagogical Foundation of Teaching Modern Foreign Languages.” The
writer makes the incontestable point that much generalization has been
done in the matter of methods of foreign-language teaching without any
adequate scientific knowledge of the general laws of language learning,
the psychology of language, and so forth. She then examines the physio-
logical and psychological bases of language learning. “Four brain centers
are active in the acquisition of a language, the auditory, the visual, the
hand-motor, and the speech-motor centers—the first two, sensory; the
latter two, motor. By means of association areas in the brain, interaction
between these centers is brought about. Every sense impression seeks
expression through a motor channel. Is hearing, speaking, reading, or
writing most efficacious in impressing upon the consciousnes the new
words that constitute the foreign language? Physio-psychological investi-
gation seems to justify the adoption of a method of instruction based
largely on oral work.” It seems to be the fact that the speech-motor center
and the auditory center are physically more completely organized than the
hand-motor and visual centers, whether this is due to racial experience or
to some other factor. For this reason the language-learner will reproduce
in speech an auditory impression more quickly than a visual one, a sound
heard more quickly than a word seen. “Not all pupils, of course, belong
to this auditory speech-motor type; some belong to a visual hand-motor
type. One of the elements predominates in every individual, but the for-
mer type is more common than the latter .... The psychology of lin-
guistics also contributes information as to the processes by which the
individual gets language percepts .... Experiments have borne out the
testimony of observation that language is more easily acquired by using
sentences [instead of single words] .... The reason for this may be
partly ascribed to interest .... Interest, however, is really but a phase
of the larger problem of emotion and feeling. The more lively the emo-
tional tone is, during the learning process, the more firmly will the image
be graven into the consciousness, the more easily will it be remembered,
and as a result speech becomes more fluent. The emotional element is most
easily aroused by things with which the student has had personal experi-
ence. The material, therefore, in the elementary stage must be familiar
to the pupil .... Differences in the soul-life of nations and peoples, differ-
ences in reactions to stimuli, cause subtle shades of meaning to grow into
a language .... We must look to psychology, therefore, not only as a
basis for method, but also as a determining factor in the choice of content

319

320 HISPANIA

that will enable us to create Sprachgefiihi.” The writer points out that
actual experimentation on a scientific basis is necessary for the formula-
tion of a method. “Many of the investigations up to the present time have
been pseudo-scientific, or at best only semi-scientific.” Two series of
experiments are cited dealing with the question whether foreign words
are more firmly associated in the mind of the learner with objects or with
the name of the object in the student’s mother tongue. These two experi-
ments produced diametrically opposite results. “From these two typical
examples, it is clear that there is something wrong with the experimenta-
tion .... The fault probably lies in the inconsistency and variability of
the conditions under which the tests were made. Carefully arranged con-
trol tests might show where the discrepancy arises.” Other experiments
are mentioned in which the conclusions are based upon assumptions. [By
implication the writer calls attention to an unfortunate, perhaps dangerous,
situation which threatens to result from the well-meant efforts of certain
of these unscientific but enthusiastic experimentors. The results of one
are accepted uncritically by another and serve him as a new point of de-
parture upon which he may pyramid a fresh set of conclusions. These in
turn are utilized by others and so on ad infinitum. Anything that calls
itself experimental tends to be accepted at its face value by inexperienced
teachers.] Next we proceed to an evaluation of the several methods of
teaching foreign languages that are or have been in use. The grammar-
translation method is unpsychological and unpedagogical and has been
largely discarded, in theory at least, although in practice it continues to
be used more or less. Some confusion of terms exists with regard to the
several methods which have been developed to take its place. The writer
uses the term “natural method” to designate that method which eliminates
grammar entirely and teaches the language as the mother tongue is
learned. The method has its good points, but: “There are, however, grave
faults in it. First of all, the conditions are not parallel to those in the
learning of the mother tongue. We are no longer dealing with an infant,
but with an individual in a much more advanced stage of development.
In learning the mother tongue, the child usually gets his concept of the
object together with the symbol in the vernacular. For this symbol in the
vernacular he must substitute a new, unfamiliar verbal symbol. The ad-
vocate of the natural method does not realize that the student cannot
easily rid himself of the symbol he already knows and that is so closely
connected with the object. It is almost impossible to awaken the response
between the object and the foreign word without the intervention of the
vernacular symbol. This has been borne out by experimental observation,
that the vernacular symbol usually springs into consciousness between the
object and the foreign word .... Another difference between learning the
mother tongue and the foreign language is that the former is a more or

PEDAGOGICAL JOURNALS 321

less unconscious process that goes on continually .... Learning a foreign
language is a conscious process, undertaken by the school, an artificial
agency. It is not a continuous but an intermittent process with constant
interferences .... It can easily be seen how much less possible it is to
teach a foreign language in the school by this method, and hope to obtain
perfect pronunciation. This argument may be met in part by the claim
.... that language teaching should begin earlier, before the child’s muscles
are so set that it is difficult to master new sounds. There is a serious
danger, however, that the development of the mother tongue will be
hampered by the introduction of a foreign language before absolutely
correct habits of speech in the mother tongue have been acquired... .
The natural method, for physiological and psychological reasons, is un-
suitable for use in our secondary schools. For practical reasons, too, it is
unacceptable. It is a very slow process; its vocabulary is limited to con-
crete objects, since objects are used to arouse the stimulus of the foreign
word .... It is also a more or less mechanical process, and while the
grammar-translation method is condemned for failing to make use of
memorization, except of grammatical rules, this method exaggerates its
importance and makes it the sole means of language acquisition. Grammar
should not be cast aside as useless ....” Another method closely related
to the natural method but making use of pictures instead of the objects
themselves is open to the same objections. “A method much in vogue is
the ‘modified natural method,’ to which the name ‘direct’ is often applied
.... Like the natural method, it is based on the use of the foreign language
as a medium of instruction. It uses objects and pictures as stimuli, but it
does not preclude the necessity of grammar instruction. Grammar is not
taught for its own sake but it is impressed into the service of the language,
and the teaching of it is confined to the mere essentials. It is taught in-

ductively .... This is, beyond a doubt, a more scientific and psychological
procedure. Another feature of this method is a great deal of oral work,
based not only on objects, but also on reading matter .... The method

does, therefore, recognize the functions of all the speech centers, both
sensory and motor, and exercises all of them.” Having determined that
the aim of language instruction is to bring the student to a point, after
three or four years of study, where he can read and enjoy literature
written in the foreign language, the writer attempts to select a method
from the several already referred to. She discards the grammar-transla-
tion method at once. She would teach pronunciation, first by oral then by
visual instruction. Sentences, not words, should be the unit of instruction.
Only fundamental grammar should be taught and taught inductively as the
need arises. Oral work should be very strongly emphasized at first. Writ-
ing, including writing from dictation, should not be neglected. Reading
aloud is important. Texts should be chosen with due regard to the psy-

4
i
2
a

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322 HISPANIA

chology of the student. Translation can be made judicious use of. Com-
position should not be attempted except in very advanced instruction. The
writer summarizes her main conclusions as follows: “1. Fit the subject
matter and the method to the psychological development of the child.
2. Discover, as far as possible, the learning types of the individuals, and
suit the instruction to them, as far as is practicable. 3. Make oral work
the basis of instruction, since the auditory and speech-motor images are
the strongest in the greatest number of pupils. 4. Reinforce and strengthen
the auditory and speech-motor images .. . . 5. Let the aim be the guide
in the method. 6. Give much opportunity for self-activity on the part of
the pupils.”

Classical Journal, XXIV, 7, April—C. C. Mierow, “Some Latin
Writers of Spain.” “The peninsula of Spain was successively colonized
and conquered by Pheenician, Carthaginian, and Roman. For six cen-
turies it enjoyed the benefits of Roman civilization and culture before the
Vandals, the Suevi, the Visigoths, and the Moors, each in their turn,
dominated the land and impressed upon it characteristic features of their
own manner of life. By the terms of the treaty which Scipio made with
Carthage at the close of the Second Punic War in 201 B.c., Rome became
the recognized mistress of the western Mediterranean, and the territory
of Spain was divided into the two new Roman provinces of Hither and
Farther Spain. From this beginning the rule of the Romans continued
until the fifth century a.p., when Euric the Visigoth drove out the re-
maining Roman garrisons and added this land to his dominions in France.
As a consequence of their six hundred years’ sway, there was left, at the
coming of the Goths, a fully developed municipal system, a high degree
of perfection in the arts (and notably in architecture), the Roman law,
the Christian religion, and a common speech—for the Latin language was
spoken throughout the peninsula, except in the Basque province. It is
interesting to note that in the first century of the Christian Era a Spanish
school of writers stands pre-eminent in the literary history of the Western
World, following a North Italian group of Latin authors .... Spain
contributed to Rome the majority of the most noted Latin writers of the
Silver Age in her literature.” The greatest names are, according to the

writer, the two Senecas, Lucan, Martial, Porcius Latro, Pomponius Mela,
and Quintilian.

LITERARY PERIODICALS

[Department conducted by Proressor C. E. Anrpat, Associate Editor]

LA ILUSTRE FREGONA

Allusions by Cervantes to works for conducting the waters of the
river Argales to Valladolid, the mention by him of certain real personages
such as Doctor Lafuente and the Conde de Punonrrostro, the curiosa par-
ticularidad, pointed out by Rodriguez Marin (ed. 1927, p. xl), of the
existence about 1570 of a corregidor of Burgos named Diego Carriazo,
like one of the fathers in the Cervantine story, the whole topography of
the work, and certain faithfully recorded types and customs of the epoch,
affording a realistic background too palpable to be challenged per se,
have caused many readers to ask with Rodriguez Marin: “; Hay algo de
verdad en el asunto de La ilustre fregona?” Jaime Oliver Asin throws
some light on this question by his notes “Sobre los origines de ‘La ilustre
fregona’” in the April, 1928, number of the Boletin de la Real Academia
Espattiola (T. XV, Cuad. LXXII, pp. 224-31).

There are striking analogies between Cervantes’ tale and a comedia
of Lope de Vega, El Mesén de la Corte (Obras, Nueva Ed., Real Acad.,
I). In the latter, the student Rodrigo, sent by his father to study law,
abandons the road to Salamanca and goes to Madrid, where he so falls in
love with the fregona Juana that he remains as mozo in the mesén where
she is employed—exactly as in La ilustre fregona Avendafio plans (with
Carriazo) to study at Salamanca, but abandons his ayo in Valladolid
and takes the road to Madrid, a journey interrupted by his falling in love
with Costanza, the moza of the Mesén del Sevillano, at Toledo, where,
that he may be near her, he takes a position as mozo de mesén. In both
works, moreover, all who come to the inn likewise become enamored of
the moza, although she disregards all amorous attentions. There is evi-
dently no relation between the two works in the varying episodes that
immediately follow, but analogies again appear in the recognition scenes
that form the denouement of both. At the end of Lope’s play, Francelo
appears looking for a daughter that has been carried off by a certain
alférez, and it turns out that Juana is really no moza de mesén at all, but
the very daughter of Francelo, Dofia Elvira Pimentel. Upon the arrival
of Cleorisio, father of Rodrigo, it is discovered that the latter likewise is
only pretending to be a mozo, and with no scruples regarding social differ-
ences Juana and Rodrigo are married. Very much the same thing happens
after the intermediate material in La ilustre fregona: Carriazo’s father
arrives at the inn, and it is discovered that he is also the father of Cos-
tanza, who is thus no more of a fregona than Juana, but like her a muy

323

324 HISPANIA

ilustre doncella. With Carriazo, the father, there comes also the father
of Avendafio, and it is furthermore discovered that the mozo de mesén
is no other than the latter’s own son. So the marriage of “mozo” and
“moza” is joyfully arranged.

The relation between the two works is indubitable. The Lope comedia
is anterior to 1606, since it is cited in the first Peregrino list, while the
Novelas ejemplares first appeared in print in 1613. Consequently, says
Asin, Lope’s priority of publication cannot be denied. [It must be borne
in mind, however, that Cervantes probably wrote several of his novelas
at least eight or ten years before publication, and that Lope might well
have read La ilustre fregona in manuscript, some time, perhaps soon, after
1597, the year of the hanging of Genis and Ribera, to which Cervantes
alludes.] Asin does not believe that, to write his Jlustre fregona, Cer-
vantes need have read [or seen] El Mesén de la Corte. What he does
believe is: “que ambos escritores conocieron una fuente escrita, basada
probablemente en algiin suceso real, que ambos aprovecharon, y cuya
accion desarrollaron, cada uno, conforme a su técnica literaria. ... Lo que
no se puede admitir, por venir a demostrarlo esa analogia de episodios
entre las dos obras, es que el asunto de La ilustre fregona saliese todo él
de la imaginacién del mas grande de los prosistas espafioles.”

It is possible that various writers may have reported the event, in
which case Lope and Cervantes could have utilized sources that were not
exactly the same. If one is not inclined to accept the hypothesis of any
written source, he must at least, thinks Asin, admit that both Lope and
Cervantes recorded an occurrence that they themselves had either heard
of or witnessed. The hypothesis of a written source, however, is sup-
ported by one of the final passages in Cervantes’ novela: “Di6 ocasién la
historia de la fregona ilustre a que los poetas del dorado Tajo ejercitasen
sus plumas en solemnizar y alabar la sin par hermosura de Costanza.”

There is attributed to Lope also a comedia with the Cervantine title
La ilustre fregona (or Amante al uso), mentioned in, and consequently
anterior to, Castillo Solérzano’s Las harpias de Madrid (1631), and
printed in Lope’s Parte XXIV (Zaragoza, 1641). This play, an insipid
and servile copy of Cervantes’ novela, even to the most insignificant
details, is quite unworthy of Lope, and Menéndez y Pelayo, although
following tradition in ascribing it to Lope, says that “si es suwya, en efecto,
es de lo mas flojo que saliéd de su pluma.” There is no trace of Lope’s
style or even of that of his imitators. Asin justly feels that the low type of
plagiarism is in itself sufficient reason for rejecting this generally ac-
cepted play from Lope’s theater:

“Aunque Lope utilizaba obras eruditas, cuentos, novelas, romances
cantares, etc., para la confeccién de su comedias hasta versificando en
ocasiones trozos de algun libro, nunca Ilegé a plagiar de manera servil

LITERARY PERIODICALS 325

versificando, por decirlo asi, todo el asunto de una obra desde el comienzo
hasta el fin, como en este caso ocurre. Lope utilizaba las fuentes a modo
de documentacién, sin dejar nunca de imprimir en sus comedias el sello de
su propia personalidad.”

TIRSO DE MOLINA

Dojia Blanca de los Rios de Lampérez, in a recently published lecture,
El enigma biograéfico de Tirso de Molina (Madrid, Alberto Fontana,
1928), endeavors to prove that the baptismal certificate found by her
thirty years ago in the parochial archives of San Ginés, of Madrid, is that
of Tirso de Molina. Dofia Blanca maintains that the “Gabriel,” son of
Gracia Juliana, who was baptized on the ninth of March, 1584, is our
Gabriel Téllez of the famous pseudonym; not simply “Téllez,” an apellido
applied to the great dramatist during his life, but a “Téllez Girdn,” son
of no less a personage than the second Duque de Osuna, and brother of
the great Girén, who at this date was nine years old. This startling con-
clusion is deduced from the fact that in the margin of the San Ginés
certificate, under the name “Gabriel,” there was written and later scratched
out a note that Dofia Blanca would interpret as reading “Téllez Girén,
hijo del duque Osuna” (sic).

“Reconstruyamos el hecho [she says] : escrita !a verdad sobre el origen
del nedfito, una voluntad poderosa mandé6 borrar la nota, y la partida se
extendié ya sin el nombre del padre, aunque dejando un claro, como una
débil esperanza, después del nombre de Gabriel (ndétese que la ele final de
esta palabra, cortada a cercén en la nota marginal, fué aqui prolongada
con un trazo como para llenar el hueco) ... No renuncié sin lucha a la
publicacién de aquella partida; ante ella habia yo sentido ese choque
inefable del encuentro del espiritu con la verdad, sensacién que han pro-
bado todos los explorandores de la historia ante el hallazgo de un docu-
mento revelador.”

Jenaro Artiles Rodriguez, archivista de Villa, in the Revista de la
Biblioteca, Archivo y Museo for October, 1928 (Afio V, nim. XX,
pp. 403-411), confesses in his judicious article “La partida bautismal de
‘Tirso de Molina’” that he has examined this baptismal certificate and has
not felt “choque inefable alguno hijo del ayuntamiento del espiritu y la
verdad, sino la desazén de la duda.” This doubt he sets forth “noble y sin-
ceramente ... sefialandole [a Dofia Blanca] un posible punto débil del edi-
ficio, para que al darlo por acabado, cuando edite su libro sobre Tirso,
refuerce la prueba hasta disipar de nuevo todo asomo de desconfianza ... y
mas si lleva [el trabajo] la firma de escritora cuya honradez literaria y
seriedad, probada mil veces, excluye de antemano toda posibilidad de
engafio voluntario.”

The date of the partida found by la sefiora de los Rios is confirmed

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;
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326 HISPANIA

by the Cédula del Real Consejo, also made known by her in 1922 (A.B.C.,
November 12), and is not to be questioned. It is regarding the exactness
of her transcription of the marginal note that Sefior Rodriguez expresses
doubt. Dofia Blanca detects under the obliterating strokes of this erasure:

“Tz. Girén
“Hijo del
“Dq. Osuna”

but Sefior Rodriguez has been unable to make these words out, either by
direct reading or against the light, either on the original or in photographs.

A circumstance that might be alleged in support of a suspicion of
error is the fact that the discovery of this partida, though known for
thirty-six years to la sefiora de los Rios, Paz y Melia, and those in charge
of the Archivo Parochial of San Ginés, has been kept secret so long that
the erased marginal note has now become illegible “por haberse oscurecido
la tinta de las tachaduras.” Sefior Rodriguez quite properly regrets that
so important a document should not have been made public while it was
still possible for Dofia Blanca to confirm her own statements with the
authoritative testimony of Paz y Melia, who, at the time of the discovery,
was able, she affirms, to read the marginal note “de corrido,” in spite of
the erasures.

In order to read Dofia Blanca’s interpretation into the three mysterious
lines, one must invent for “Tz. Girén” in the first line a T, a z, and a G
that are quite distinct from these letters as they occur anywhere else in
the body of the document. Sefior Rodriguez believes that in the second
line one may read de just as well as “del,” the choice depending upon what
follows. To read “duque Osuna” in the third line is “un disparate de
lenguaje.” It is always by the use of de that duque, as a title implying
authority over a place, has joined to it a geographical name. To have
said duque Osuna would have been as incorrect gramatically as rey Cas-
tilla or gobernador Barataria. One might perhaps accept this inexplicable
brevity as a concession to the haste in which the marginal note may have
been set down. But where does one get an initial d for this line? If a
small letter, it conforms to no other d in the text; if taken as a capital,
“no hay medio de reconstruir de los pequeitios restos ndéufragos que ahi
quedan.” There is no tail to the “q nonata.” Sefior Rodriguez would not
venture to affirm rotundamente that the initial of Dofia Blanca’s “Osuna”
is an O, and in fact feels that such a transcription is the least likely. It
would seem that the writer of these lines took pleasure in tracing letters
that were new and strange. One might perhaps say that he had intended
to disfigure his letters precisely for the sake of making his comment
illegible. But a total abstinence from marginal notes would seem a much

more logical procedure for a person motivated by such a desire to hide
lo inconfesable.

LITERARY PERIODICALS 327

Dofia Blanca has noted that in the text proper the name of the bap-
tized Gabriel is so written that there occurs after it, “como una débil
esperanza,” a space or claro. She believes this space purposely to have
been so left, in order that it might later be possible to fill it in with a
name that would more definitely establish the identity of the neophyte,
which, at the time, it may have been thought best to veil. Dofia Blanca
herself has noted that the final 1 of “Gabriel” has been prolonged, partly
filling this space. Sefior Rodriguez explains this prolongation of the final
l as precisely the same phenomenon as the subsequent prolonging of the
final 1 of an el and that of the final e of a de, all done to make an im-
mediately following space less noticeable. The space after “Gabriel” is
not a hueco dejado at the time of writing the name, but a blank encon-
trado, already existing. It is expressly stated in the book containing our
baptismal certificate that it and several other documents were written by
the teniente de la parroquia, Jerénimo Campos. Sefior Rodriguez shows
that it was a time-saving custom of the expeditious Campos to write out
the formula of his partidas de bautismo beforehand, leaving such blanks
as might be necessary, to be filled in as needed, at the time of a baptismal
ceremony, with the details of date, child, parents, and padrinos.

The space in question, then, does not seem to have been left as a
faint hope that there might later come to occupy it the name of a nobly
descended Téllez Girén, but appears to be merely the residue of a ready-
made blank (encontrado) that was filled in at the time of baptism, as best
it could be, with the name “Gabriel” and the prolongation of its final J.

Sefior Rodriguez offers a simple explanation of the marginal note:
On the blank form previously written out by Padre Campos, some other
person, planning to record a baptism, began by making a marginal note
of the child’s name and the most essential data. Later, when the first note
was found to be incorrect, or when perhaps the neophyte was not baptized
at all, Campos himself struck out the note, and wrote above it the
“Gabriel” that still remains.

Sefior Rodriguez does not deny that the partida de bautismo discovered
by Dojia Blanca is that of fray Gabriel Téllez, and in fact, although he
feels that there are no reasons for affirming per se that it is Tirso’s, he
is inclined to believe that it really is his, despite the declaration on the
Soria portrait that gives Tirso’s dates as 1572-1648. The date of our
document, March 9, 1584, is supported by other evidence, and moreover
offers a perfect explanation of the date of Tirso’s religious profession,
January 21, 1601, hitherto surprising, because, on the Soria evidence, it
has been believed that he put off his vows until he was twenty-nine years
old. Usually profession was made before attaining the age of twenty,
so that, if the date of Dofia Blanca’s partida is correct, Tirso’s profession
took place at the normal age of seventeen.

NEW BOOKS

SCHOOL TEXTS

Applied Spanish Grammar, by JosepH A. Vaetu, of New York Uni-
versity. xi + 275 pp. Longmans, Green & Company, 1928. $1.60.

There are thirty-eight lessons, preceded by ten pages of introduction
dealing with pronunciation, accentuation, and so forth. Each lesson is
made up of grammatical forms, examples of usage, rules deduced from
the examples, vocabulary, oral drill, English sentences to be translated
into Spanish, and questions in Spanish. The plan of the book is in ac-
cordance with the inductive method. There is a verb appendix; also the
usual two vocabularies and an index.

Fundamentals of Spanish, by Louis Imsert, of Columbia University, and
Francisco PiNot, of Connecticut College. xxviii + 278 pp. Silver
Burdett & Company, 1928. $1.44.

An introduction (14 pp.) deals with pronunciation, syllabification, and
so forth, and contains two pages of classroom expressions. There are
thirty-nine lessons, each containing grammatical forms, a vocabulary,
various types of exercises, a set of Spanish questions, a lesson review, and
occasionally a general review. There are also “Historietas,”’ each one
complete, yet forming part of a connected story of Spanish life. An
appendix (38 pp.) contains some Spanish letters, rules for the uses of the
article, gender of nouns, etymological equivalents, practical hints, and
information about verbs. There are the usual two vocabularies and an
index. Illustrations consist of many Spanish and Spanish-American
pictures. There are also maps of Spain and South America.

A Spanish Grammar for Colleges, by E. C. Hiits, of the University of
California, and J. D. M. Forp, of Harvard University. vi + 330 pp.
D. C. Heath & Company, 1928. $1.60.

The first nineteen pages deal with pronunciation and related subjects.
There are thirty lessons. In the first fifteen lessons the common matters
of grammar are treated, in accordance with a psychological approach. In
the remainder of the lessons the various parts of speech are presented
more thoroughly, a chapter being devoted to each, as well as to such topics
as numerals, qualifying suffixes, and so forth. Page 207 to 273 treat of
verbs, including a list of irregular and radical-changing verbs, and a list
of verbs taking a direct infinitive object or requiring a preposition before
a subordinate infinitive. There are the usual two vocabularies and an

index. The book also contains colored maps of Spain, Mexico, and South
America.

328

New Booxs 329

Alternate Spanish Review Grammar and Composition Book, by ArTHUR
RoMEYN Seymour, of Florida State College for Women, and Davip
Hopart CARNAHAN, of the University of Illinois. xii + 184 pp.
D. C. Heath & Company, 1923 and 1928. $1.28.

At the beginning of this book are a page of classroom expressions and
a page of Spanish grammatical terms. The main part of the book consists
of fifteen lessons, each lesson containing a body of grammatical material,
a reading selection, dealing with Spanish America, and various drill and
translation exercises. Appendix A (3 pp.) discusses accentuation and
syllabification; Appendix B (9 pp.) treats of verbs; Appendix C (3 pp.)
is a reference list of irregular verbs; Appendix D (4 pp.) is a list of
verbs governing the direct infinitive or requiring a, de, en, por, or con
before a dependent infinitive. The Spanish-English and English-Spanish
vocabularies are so arranged that on each page the former is above and
the latter below a dividing line. There is an index (8 pp.). Numerous
pictures of Spanish-American scenes embellish the book.

Technical and Industrial Spanish, by ANton1io ALonso, of the American
University, and P. R. Hersuey, of Northwestern University. viii +
327 pp. (216 text, 111 vocabularies). D. C. Heath & Company, 1928.
$1.92.

The text consists of thirty chapters, drawn mostly from the works of
Spanish and Spanish-American writers. There are several extracts from
the works of Echegaray. Among the subjects treated are: “Electricity
and Mechanics,” “Civil Engineering,” “Mining and Metallurgy,” “Agri-
culture,” and “Industrial Readings.” There are many diagrams, views,
and maps illustrating the text, which in a book of this sort full of technical
terms are indispensable. The frontispiece is an excellent portrait of the

famous Spanish scientist, Ramén y Cajal, and there are a few pages from
his pen.

Business Spanish, by James Cuurcu Atvorp, of Southwestern Louisiana

Institute. xxi +315 pp. (259 text, 56 vocabularies). The Century
Company, 1928. $2.00.

The main part of the book consists of one hundred Spanish and
seventy-two English letters. The latter are translations of original Span-
ish letters and are intended for retranslation into Spanish. The letters
were gathered from seventeen different countries. In addition, there are
brief suggestions for thirty-three letters. An appendix contains a list of
abbreviations, headings and conclusions of letters, values of coins, and
so forth. The introduction discusses the trend of usage in Spanish com-
mercial correspondence. The book contains a number of illustrations,

such as views of commercial institutions and facsimiles of commercial
documents.

330 HISPANIA

Tres Meses en México, a Spanish Conversational Reader, by Stuart E,
GRUMMON, and ALFRED DE NorieGA, Jr. xiii + 321 pp. (196 text, 14
suggested material for conversation, 11 verbs, 100 vocabularies).
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1928. $1.00.

There are twenty-five chapters, the subject-matter being based upon a
vacation trip to Mexico. A wide variety of subjects is covered, such as
travel, history, art, sport, and so forth. Preceding each chapter are gram-
matical hints, and each chapter stresses some grammatical subject. Fol-
lowing each of the twenty-five divisions of the text are exercises to be
translated from English into Spanish. There are two vocabularies, Span-
ish-English and English-Spanish. The volume contains eleven illustra-
tions by Carmen Diaz and Ernesto Cabral.

Nociones de Literatura Castellana, por M. Romero pe TERREROS, Mar-
qués de San Francisco, Correspondiente de la Real Academia Espafiola.
vi + 108 pp. D. C. Heath & Company, 1927. $1.00.

The work is entirely in Spanish. The text is divided into thirty-six
sections, each followed by a bibliography and recommendations for read-
ing. At the end of the book is a reference list of authors mentioned in
the text.

Las Flores de Aragén, por Epvarpo MArguInNa, edited by Sturcis E.
Leavitt, of the University of North Carolina. xxv + 222 pp. (160
text, 7 versification, 13 notes, 42 vocabularies). The Century Com-
pany, 1928. $1.25.

This is a play in four acts and in verse, treating of the romantic mar-
riage of Ferdinand and Isabella. The editor’s introduction (22 pp.)
contains a sketch of the life and works of Marquina and historical infor-
mation about Isabella, in order that the reader may better understand the
references in the play. Notes on versification and the scheme of versifi-
cation in this play are also furnished. The frontispiece is a reproduction
of a photograph of the author. Other illustrations are pictures of Dojfia
Isabel de Castilla, Don Fernando de Aragon, and a map of Castile and
Aragon, 1469.

Jardin Umbrio, por RAMON DEL VALLE-INCLAN, edited by Pau Patrick
Rocers, of the University of Missouri. xxvii +179 pp. (105 text,
21 notes, 53 vocabularies). Henry Holt & Company, 1928. $1.00.
This is a collection of thirteen stories, most of which are taken from
the author’s collection entitled Jardin Umbrio. Included at the beginning
of the book is a Balada Laudatoria by Rubén Dario. The editor con-
tributes a biographical and critical introduction, in English (17 pp.).
There is also a list of the author’s works.
MicHAegL S. DoNLAN

REVIEWS

Investigaciones acerca de la Historia Econémica del Virreinato del
Plata por Ricarpo Levene. (2 vols. La Plata, 1927, 1928; xvi + 324,
324 pages.)

Students who have had occasion to investigate the colonial history of
Spanish America have frequently lamented the absence of scholarly and
authoritative treatises dealing with the economic aspect of the subject.
This lacuna, as far as the Platine region is concerned, is admirably filled
by the book under review. The work in fact is more comprehensive than
the title would indicate. The history of the viceroyalty of the Rio de la
Plata, it will be recalled, embraces only the years 1776-1810. But Dr.
Levene has quite properly devoted the larger part of the first volume to
the history of the colony as a whole. An illuminating chapter on condi-
tions in Spain in the sixteenth century is followed by a detailed discussion
of the policy of Spain in regard to the Indies. The origin and growth of
the economic institutions of the struggling colony of Buenos Aires are
carefully traced. The conflict of interests between Lima and Buenos Aires
is for the first time fully set forth and the effect of the selfish and
monopolistic aims of Peru on the dawning national consciousness of the
inhabitants of the Platine colony are clearly indicated. The volume con-
cludes with an account of the effects of the reforming policy of Charles
III and the growing commercial rivalry between England and Spain.

The opening chapters of the second volume deal with the establishment
of the viceroyalty in 1776. Then follows a carefully documented descrip-
tion of the economic life of the viceroyalty with special emphasis on such
topics as grazing, agriculture, land tenure, and the fiscal system. A
brilliant chapter on “The Economic Functions of the Colonial Institu-
tions” rounds out the picture. Dr. Levene makes clear that such bodies as
the cabildo and the consulado were not shadowy entities completely sub-
ordinate to the viceroy but enjoyed a large and vigorous autonomy. As
the end of the colonial epoch approached there was a marked quickening
of the economic life of the viceroyalty. The people both of high and low
degree began to glimpse the future greatness of their country. There was
a growing determination to make effective use of the gifts with which
nature had so lavishly dowered this favored land. Pensemos en grande
was a phrase which gained ever wider currency. The revolution of 1810
which brought the Spanish régime to an end thus represented a further
and logical advance in a movement whose roots strike deep into the whole
economic structure of the colony.

Percy ALVIN MARTIN
STANFORD UNIVERSITY

331

332 HISPANIA

Miguel de Unamuno. Poeta, Novelista, Ensayista, por M. RoMeEra-
Navarro. Madrid [1928]. 328 pp.

Of the total literary work of Don Miguel de Unamuno it is not too
much to say that the general public has no adequate conception. The
writings of Spain’s most forceful contemporary thinker are not of a
character to seize the interest of the average reader. He who does not
seek stimulation to serious thought in the literature that he reads, who
does not care to be moved to meditation, will, in general, find little to
attract him in the works of the learned and distinguished ex-rector of the
University of Salamanca.

It may be too early yet to attempt to assign final values to Unamuno’s
literary production and to estimate the author’s influence and place in
contemporary thought, but that among the writers of his generation he
must occupy a distinguished place few can doubt. Numerous essays and
partial studies of his writings have appeared, but to Professor Romera-
Navarro we are indebted for the only comprehensive study of Unamuno’s
total work thus far published. Perhaps the reason, at least the chief
reason, for the lack of such a study heretofore is not difficult to determine:
it lies, without doubt, in the very diversity and complexity of the author’s
work. Novelist, poet, essayist, unorthodox (in the literary sense), and
defiant of accepted and established creeds in each category, Sefior Una-
muno assuredly does not lend himself readily to facile study and conven-
tional pigeonholing. Nevertheless, and perhaps just for such reasons, no
contemporary Spanish writer more generously merited or stood in greater
need of a comprehensive study and interpretation. Thanks to the patience,
the erudition, and the fine critical sense of Professor Romera-Navarro
the reader of Unamuno no longer needs to content himself with frag-
mentary and incomplete interpretations of his work.

No brief review can give more than a summary idea of the nature of
the study before us. Professor Romera-Navarro divides his essay into
five parts, the first of which is an Introduction of some forty pages giving
us biographical details, a picture of Unamuno the man, and a general
characterization of him as a writer. The three succeeding parts are de-
voted to an analysis and study of Unamuno as (1) novelist, (2) poet,
and (3) essayist. In the concluding division of the study, a Bibliography
of Sefior Unamuno’s writings, translations thereof, and critical studies of
his work, complete up to April, 1927, the reader will miss a few items
that have appeared since that date, notably, for English readers unac-
quainted with Spanish, the translation by Homer P. Earle of Life of Don
Quixote and Sancho .... (New York, 1927).

Given Sefior Unamuno’s reputation as an essayist and his abundant
production in that field of literature, it is only natural in Professor
Romera-Navarro’s book preponderant space, almost half the text, should

REVIEWS 333
be devoted to analysis and discussion of the essays. Difficult as is the task
of tracing unity of thought and consistent philosophical ideas through a
maze of writings so diversified in nature, our critic nevertheless succeeds
admirably in showing the reader how throughout all of Sefor Unamuno’s
work, not merely in the essays, but in the novels and poetry as well, from
earliest production to latest, the same philosophical problems and ideas
obtain. In his presentation and discussion of the author’s philosophy,
Professor Romera-Navarro’s wide reading in the subject serves as an
invaluable aid in understanding wherein Unamuno reveals influences of
his predecessors, wherein he exhibits points of contract with or diver-
gences from his contemporaries.

To point out all the excellent qualities of this book would be difficult.
Let it suffice to say that scarcely a page is without suggestion and that
the essay will be found a necessary and trustworthy guide in all further
study of Spain’s most eminent and most vigorous living philosopher. Here
we have a complete study, done with sympathy and fine appreciation, yet
not marred by a devotion to the subject that renders its author blind to
shortcomings and imperfections of various sorts in the object of his study.
Only an extremely partisan admirer of Sefior Unamuno could fail to find
much in his writings worthy of criticism. Professor Romera-Navarro
does not reveal himself that extreme partisan: he points out and criticizes,
where criticism is needed, imperfections of style, language, form, artistry,
and so forth, yet he does so always with such restraint and moderation as
to make the reader feel that he is handling his subject with the uttermost
fairness. We have, in short, just such a fine critical study of one writer as
the many excellent brief studies and appreciations in the same author’s
Historia de la literatura espatiola would lead us to expect. Both the author
and the Department of Romanic Languages of the University of Penn-
sylvania, in which Professor Romera-Navarro’s critical essay was pre-
sented as a thesis for the doctorate of philosophy, deserve our congratu-
lations and our thanks for this important contribution.

Joun M. Hity
INDIANA UNIVERSITY
BLooMINGTON, INDIANA

The Supervision of Modern Foreign Languages and Literature by
Ropert D. Cote, being chapter v of The Supervision of Secondary Sub-
jects, edited by Writ1s L. Unt. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1929.
The chapter under review extends over 75 pages and is one of thirteen

contributed by specialists in the various subjects of the high-school cur-

riculum. The author of the chapter that concerns us especially is Robert D.

Cole, now Professor of Secondary Education in the University of North

Dakota and formerly Head of the French and Spanish Departments in the

Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, New Jersey.

oe a 2 - ay nn rere S ace

ie
;
4

334 HISPANIA

Professor Cole has brought together within a single chapter the best
things that have been written on various phases of modern-language
pedagogy during the past eight years. He limits his treatment to devel-
opments since 1921 because it is his belief that it is only since then that
the great constructive, scientific work in modern-language teaching has
taken place. Prior to that date, he contends, modern-language teaching
was based on opinions unsupported by facts, and the literature concern-
ing modern-language teaching consisted largely of propaganda or self-
satisfied introspection.

This inventory of present-day theories and opinions, and principles
and practices in the supervision and teaching of modern foreign languages
and literature is treated under the following headings: The province of
the supervisor of modern foreign-language and literature teaching; The
modern foreign-language study; Aims and values of modern foreign
languages and literature; The sequence of courses in junior and senior
high schools; Methods of teaching languages and literature, (a) Criteria
for selecting methods, (b) Differentiation of methods for varying groups
of pupils; Methods for different aspects of language study, (a) Pro-
nunciation, (6) Oral work, (c) Vocabulary, (d) Reading, (e¢) Grammar,
(f) Writing; The selection and organization of content; Equipment for
teaching modern foreign languages and literature (with lists of books
recommended for the libraries of teachers of French, German, and
Spanish); The measurement of the results of teaching (with lists of
the achievement tests available in French, German, and Spanish) ; Types
of error and remedial work; The improvement of teachers in service; and
Keeping up with the literature of modern-language teaching. The sum-
maries and discussions are accompanied by an abundance of pertinent,
authoritative, and up-to-date footnote references as well as by an appended
classified bibliography of ten pages.

The treatment is characterized throughout by clearness, fairness, and
above all by strong, practical common sense. Professor Cole is neither
pedantic nor dogmatic. Out of the enormous amount of literature that
he has digested for his readers he rejects what is mere unsupported
opinion, and seeks out the objective, verifiable truths. His conclusions
are, however, never categorical, but are to be interpreted with due con-
sideration to differing abilities of students, the aims and objectives of the
school, the student, and the subject, the type of teacher, and the nature
of the available equipment. He weighs theories and practices in the light
of established psychological principles (which he quotes from Hand-
schin), and gives due regard to the findings of the Modern Foreign
Language Study. He considers good judgment and common sense the
most important qualities of the ideal supervisor of modern-language in-
struction. He believes that courses should be varied to meet the needs of
different localities and of pupils with different future intensions, and that

REVIEWS 335

the material used by the average person most frequently is that which
should be selected for instruction. The method will vary with the matur-
ity of the pupils and with the aim of the majority of the pupils. He
defines the best method of procedure as “an eclectic method built upon a
solid foundation of psychological principles and evolved in the light of the
teacher’s personal knowledge and characteristics, together with a due
regard for the capacities and needs of the pupils and a proper consid-
eration of the amount of time at his disposal.” Successful supervision
requires a helpful attitude on the part of all concerned. Professor Cole
maintains that an autocratic and destructively critical attitude on the part
of the supervisor will not accomplish the improvement of teachers, nor
will a stubborn and resentful one on the part of the teacher.

Although designed primarily for the high-school supervisors, the chief
value of the chapter is not limited to them. Many of the observations are
so illuminating and helpful and universally true that even the classroom
teacher in high school and college may well profit by studying it pains-
takingly with notebook and pencil in hand. Professor Cole has made a
valuable contribution to modern-language instruction and supervision.

The following observations the reviewer makes with hesitation and
merely as suggestions :

1. A disproportionate amount of the data collected and recorded is
gleaned from the Modern Language Journal. By actual count it is found
that there are 152 references to the Modern Language Journal, 24 to
Hispania, 7 to the School Review, and 3 or less to several other peda-
gogical journals. No mention is made of the French Review, the German
Quarterly, the Monatshefte fiir deutschen Unterricht, nor to the bulletins
of the several regional modeérn-language associations. Only one refer-
ence occurs to the Modern Language Forum and the Bulletin of High
Points.

2. In the lists of books recommended for a modern-language teach-
er’s library the following important works are missing from the Spanish
group: the dictionary and the grammar of the Spanish Royal Academy,
Pidal’s Gramédtica histérica, Navarro-Tomas and Espinosa’s Primer of
Spanish Pronunciation, Bell’s Contemporary Spanish Literature, the his-
tories of Spanish literature by Romera-Navarro and Hurtado y Palencia,
and Altamira’s one-volume edition of his History of Spain. Under the
heading of “Pronunciation” there should be added Torres’ Essentials of
Spanish, because it is unique in containing phonetic transcriptions of
vocabulary and phrases.

3. In the classified bioliography at the end of the chapter the follow-
ing omissions have been noted: Handschin’s Methods of Teaching Mod-
ern Languages, Wilkins’ Spanish in the High Schools, Palmer’s Oral
Method of Teaching Modern Languages, Atkins and Hutton’s Teaching
of Modern Foreign Languages, the volumes published by the Modern For-

336 HISPANIA

eign Language Study, and the works on modern-language instruction by
Jesperson, Bréal, Kittson, Gouin, Brehner, ef al.

4. The 1915 edition of Judd’s Psychology to which frequent mention
is made (pp. 195, 198, 202, 213) has been superseded by a revised edition
dated 1927.

5. An excellent and pertinent discussion of modern-language instruc-
tion in the junior high schools which was apparently overlooked by
Professor Cole is the chapter in The Junior High-School Idea by Van
Denburg.

6. Little or nothing is said of such progressive developments in edu-
cation as the Dalton Plan, the Group Plan, the Laboratory Method, the
Socialized Recitation, the Project Method, Character Training, Silent
Reading, Exploratory Courses, and the use of the radio. Silent reading,
the goal of all reading, according to Snedden, should form a part of every
reading recitation. More should have been said about General Language
courses, and specific reference should have been made to the West Hart-
ford Exploratory Course as outlined in the text by Bugbee et al. Mention
should have been made also of Leonard and Cox’s General Language, and
to the report in the annual Yearbook of the Department of Superintend-
ence of the National Education Association for February 1927.

HyMEN ALPERN
De Wirt Curnton HicH ScHoor

New York City

Selections from the Prose and Poetry of Rubén Dario, edited with intro-
duction, notes, and vocabulary by Georce W. Umpurey, Professor of
Romance Languages in the University of Washington, and CarLos
Garcia Prana, Instructor in Spanish in the University of Washing-
ton. The Macmillan Hispanic Series, the Macmillan Company, 1928.
vii + 274 pages.

In spite of the fact that the Modernista movement is the most import-
ant development in contemporary Spanish literature, there has been, up to
now, only one American text on that subject, Dr. Alfred Coester’s excel-
lent Anthology of the Modernista Movement. The present edition of
selections from Rubén Dario will therefore be warmly welcomed.

The text is preceded by a very full introduction, dealing with the life
of Dario, with the genesis of his chief works, and with the essential prin-
ciples of Spanish versification as exemplified in Dario and other Modern-
istas.

Special commendation is due the editors for the excellent notes which
follow the text. The works of Dario abound in erudite allusions to his-
tory, mythology, and universal literature, which the average student would
find incomprehensible without assistance. Especially felicitous are the

REVIEWS 337

comments on “dulce principe,” page 183, “La reina Mab,” page 185, and
“prosas latinas” and “roman paladino,” pages 192 and 193. One is occa-
sionally inclined to disagree with notes interpretative of the text, as
“mariposas de raros abanicos,” page 185.

The vocabulary is also excellent. It is extremely full (69 pages), but
in an edition of Dario nothing less would be adequate. It supplements the
notes in clearing up many obscure allusions, as “Gyp,” “Ecbatana,” and
“epifania,” and translates many words and expressions not to be found in
the dictionaries.

The most serious adverse criticism of the volume concerns the selec-
tion and arrangement of material. Due to the necessity for lengthy intro-
duction, notes, and vocabulary, the text is limited to 117 pages. It seems
strange, then, that the editors should have seen fit to devote no less than
33 pages to selections from the poet’s Autobiografia. It is untrustworthy,
as they themselves remark (notes, p. 179), and is by no means the best of
Dario’s prose. The only possible reason for including it is for informa-
tion, and all its essential content has already been given in the introduc-
tion, in a much more satisfactory form. This space, then, might much
better have been occupied by some of the exquisite poems in Prosas pro-
fanas and Cantos de vida which have been crowded out. A further disad-
vantage is that valuable space in the notes has been devoted to explaining
allusions found only in the Autobiografia.

The criticism above is not quite so applicable to the selections from the
Historia de mis libros, and in any case they cover only ten pages. It is,
however, to be regretted that several notes occur in connection with the
Historia which more properly belong with individual poems.

The peculiarities of form of a number of the most important poems
might have been made much clearer by a different arrangement of edi-
torial material. The only information on versification is in the introduc-
tion, where it is in the form of a general discussion of the subject, refer-
ences to individual poems occurring only for purposes of illustration. This
is an unfortunate situation when one wishes to study the metrical peculi-
arities of an individual poem. Canto a la Argentina, for instance, is men-
tioned in no less than six different places in the introduction: five times
in connection with lines of different lengths, pages 48 and 49, and once as
illustrating the irregular silva, page 52. Similarly, El reino interior is dis-
cussed on three different pages, 48, 50, and 52. No indication is given in
the notes as to where this information may be found. A better arrange-
ment would be a brief paragraph in the notes on the versification of each
important poem, with further notes on individual lines which present
special peculiarities. This, without changing essentially the material in
the introduction.

E. K. Mapes
Tue University or Iowa

338 HISPANIA

Rivalry of the United States and Great Britain over Latin America
(1808-1830), the Albert Shaw Lectures on Diplomatic History, by
J. Frep Rippy, Professor of History in Duke University. Baltimore;
The Johns Hopkins Press, 1929. xi + 322 pages. $2.75.

This book sketches many intimate details in the struggle between the
United States and Great Britain during the revolutionary period of Latin
America. Throughout, the British government made determined efforts
to find wider opportunities for British trade. The United States was con-
cerned near its own borders with the acquisition of Florida and the reten-
tion of Louisiana. In the regions beyond, Americans were more especially
propagandists of democratic doctrine. To this the revolting Spanish
colonists were more responsive than to British arguments regarding trade.
Besides, the British government was not inclined to push matters against
the United States for fear of losing the even more valuable market of the
States themselves. A peculiar interest is given to Professor Rippy’s book
by the extensive quotations from the correspondence of the agents, both
British and American, gleanings from the authors’ researches in England
and in Washington. To these men, who confronted each other in Mexico,
Bogota, Santiago de Chile, and Buenos Aires, the contest was keen and
personal, and they were not infrequently uncomplimentary in their opin-
ions of each other’s methods and characters when writing home.

ALFRED COESTER
STANFORD UNIVERSITY

PAGE
A Crp Drama oF 1639..... peewee edns bbws ke Alice H. Bushee 339
Tue Literary WorkK oF MANUEL PayNno.......... J.R. Spell 347
Et MopeRNISMO Y LA CRITICA......... Arturo Torres Rioseco 357
A SonNET OF JAuREGUI’S........ iwrnaskowta ...John D. Rea 365

ZoRRILLA’S USE OF THE FAMILIAR AND POoLitTe Forms or Ap-
press IN His “Don Juan TeNnorio”.......Wéilliam Wilson 367

AN INEXACT ANALOGY.........00000 000: Robert K. Spaulding 371
THE MopERN FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY...........+--+-- 377
PICTURES IN THE SPANISH CLASS.......... Donald A. Paine 385
A DEFENSE OF MODERN LANGUAGES...... S. Lyman Mitchell 391
PDO ROCEMENTD ww ccc xenndnhsecsseetebustinneeeeereen 397
ERAPTG PONWG. ....cncdesbebidveocesécbupuuas Cony Sturgis 404
DPE core cncccastéssnepeateaweeen Henry Grattan Doyle 414
PEDAGOGICAL JOURNALS............eeeee0. Arthur L. Owen 417
LITERARY PRESOQDOCAES. 2.066 ccc sccvcscenunes C. E. Anibal 421
Brasco IBANEZ
REVIEWS:

Metro. GREGUER{AS AUTORIZADAS (ALFONSO JIMENEZ AQguINOo)

Federico Sanchez 426
La TonapILLta Escéntca (José SusrrA)........... Antonio Heras 428
CHILEAN SHORT Stories (A. TorrES RIOSECO)

Hermenegildo Corbaté 429
ENROLLMENT IN FoREIGN LANGUAGES IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS
(CARLETON A. WHEELER); ACHIEVEMENT Tests (V. A. C.
HeENmMoON); SPANISH Ip1Iom List (Haywarp KENISTON) ; TRAIN-
ING OF TEACHERS (C. M. Purin); Iratia £ SPAGNA (ARTURO
FaRINELLI); Deep Sonc (Irvinc Brown); Ramon Lui: A
OUI go ces occ eh dn cocks sdtrneeuebeniees Alfred Coester 431

OsITUARY—MALBONE WATSON GRAHAM
S. L. Millard Rosenberg 436

Hispania, the official journal of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish, is
ppblishes by the Association at Stanford University Press in the months of

arch, May, October, November, and December.

Entered as second-class matter pebeunty 20, 1918, at the postoffice at Palo Alto, Stanford
University Branch, California, under the Act of August 24, 1912.

The journal is a porgeiaite of membership in the Association, to which anybody inter-
ested in Spanish is eligible; annual dues, including subscription to Hispanta, $2.00. Postage
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Applications for membership should be addressed to Wm. M. Barlow, the Secretary-
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ornia.

Juan C. CepriAn

San Francisco,California

President
Georce W. H. Sarevp (1929)
City Schools, Los Angeles
First Vice-President

Artuur L. Owen (1927-29)

University of Kansas

A.rFrep CogsTer (1928-29)

Stanford University, California

Extten Dwyer (1928-30)

Evanston, Ill.

Isapet K. Fineau (1927-29)

El] Paso, Texas

C. C. Grascock (1529-31)

University of Texas

Auretio M. Espinosa (1927-29)
Stanford University

Craupe E. Anrpar (1928-30)

Ohio State University

Mary We tp Coates (1928-30)
Cleveland, Ohio

Georce I. Dare (1929-31)

Cornell University

Henry Grattan Doyze (1929-31)
George Washington University

_ Pape ee ee

THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS OF SPANISH
HONORARY PRESIDENTS

ArcHer M. HuntTINcToNn
New York, N.Y.

OFFICERS

Second Vice-President
Georce T. Nortuup (1928-30)
University of Chicago
Third Vice-President
Exmer R. Stms (1929-31)

University of Texas

Secretary-Treasurer

WuraM M. Bartow (1928-30)
Curtis High School, New York City

EXECUTIVE COUNCIL
ABOVE OFFICERS AND

ARTHUR KLEIN (1929-31)
New York City

Feperico bE Onis (1929-31)

Columbia University

Rupo.tpx ScHeEvitt (1927-29)

University of California

Cony Sturcis (1928-30)
Chapter Adviser
Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio

HISPANIA EDITORIAL STAFF
EDITOR
A.rrep Cogster (1927-29)

Stanford University

CONSULTING EDITORS

Joun D. Frrz-Gerayp (1927-29)

University of Illinois

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

E. H. Hespert (1929-31)
New York University

E. C. Hmxs (1928-30)

University of California

KaTHLeen Lory (1928-29)

Pasadena, California

C. M. Montcomery (1927-29)

University of Texas

Artuur L. Owen (1927-29)
University of Kansas
BUSINESS MANAGER

Artuur Kern (1929-31)
1300 Boynton Ave., New York City