We have heard it asserted on grounds of gradation that the _written_ form of a language should be studied before its _spoken_ form. Here again we find the same misinterpretation of the term gradation and the same fallacy of 'facility.' If relative facility is to be the basis of gradation, then we should teach the geography of Portugal before teaching the geography of the British Empire, and we should postpone our study of chess until we have become expert in the easier game of noughts and crosses. To learn how to read and to write a language may possibly be easier than to learn how to speak it and to understand it when spoken, but this has no bearing on the subject of gradation.
Another false interpretation of the principle is to assume that the student will begin by using incorrect or pidgin-French (or whatever the language may be) and will gradually become more perfect 'with practice' as he goes on. Now if this is gradation, it is a particularly vicious form, and in flat contradiction to the principles of habit-forming and accuracy.
To teach to adults 'child-like words' before the words used by adults is another misinterpretation of gradation. We do indeed see classes in which boys or girls of twelve or thirteen learn to recite foreign nursery rhymes, but we doubt whether any teacher would seriously maintain that words such as _dog_ or _sheep_ should be preceded by _bow-wow_ or _baa-baa_.
Having examined some faulty and vicious manners of interpreting the term gradation, let us now proceed to epitomize a few rational applications of the principle we have set forth, and let us assure the reader that each one of these has been proved to be psychologically sound.
(_a_) _Ears before Eyes._--All fresh language-material should be presented in its oral form and not in its written form. Sounds should first be practised without any reference to any graphic forms of representation; the ear, not the eye, is the organ provided by nature for recognizing and assimilating sounds. Words should first be heard and imitated orally, for ideal assimilation is not helped but hindered when the written form is present.
Fresh word-groups and sentences should also as far as possible be first introduced and learnt orally. The adult student who complains that the process is too difficult is under the illusion that we hear with our eyes.
