FOREIGN LANGUAGE

"We must have read the same books, only in English rather than in Latin or Greek, because the people will probably never have time to attain proficiency in these; neither, as a matter of fact, has the average boy at our great schools." vol 6

"In French, we have invited parents to take a bold plunge, and they have responded delightfully. "But they have never learned any French," says the surprised mother of children of eight and nine, when she is asked to have her children taught, orally, say forty lines of a French tale during a term.

However, she tries, and is surprised to find at the end of the term that the children know these forty lines quite well, and not only so, but they know the words and phrases so well that they can construct other sentences with them. It is a delightful surprise to the parents to find that the children possess quite a considerable French vocabulary, and have none of the miserable insular mauvauise honte in saying foreign words upon which the French of many of us makes shipwreck; and this, because they do not learn to read French, but learn it from the lips of one who can speak it."  Volume 3, Charlotte Mason