~These two ends we have aimed to further not only by questions and exercises based on the text, which do not differ essentially from the customary ones, but also by a vocabulary which does differ from most others in its fulness of detail, and which may therefore require a word of explanation.~
~Our reasons, then, for incorporating such extended lexicographical and grammatical comment in the vocabulary were these: First, the desire to dispense with a separate body of notes, which since the coming into use of questions and exercises has made the very handling of some Readers more difficult for the student than it ought to be. Second, the conviction that the beginner needs more explicit information than is usually offered regarding the inflection of the nouns, adjectives, and verbs that he is expected to learn in the course of his reading. And, third, the belief that although it is well for the student not to consult the vocabulary until he has exerted his own wits to the utmost in getting at the meaning of new words or phrases, lest he become a slave thereto, it is equally important that whenever he does resort to it he should find there, and just then, all the information which the full understanding of the text, the answering of the questions, and the reproduction of the text involved in the exercises can reasonably call for.~
~In conclusion we might add that it is just such immediate and intensive study of all common words, phrases, and constructions that constitutes one of the most valid claims of the Direct Method to its name and distinction. Too often, however, in our opinion, the rash adoption of this method as something new has resulted in the most indirect and expensive way of teaching, as well as of learning, that modicum of grammar and syntax without which all study of language is doomed sooner or later to end in disappointment.~
~CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, December, 1917.~
2. Der Fuchs und der Krebs L. Bechstein 3
4. Der Schmied von Jüterbog L. Bechstein 9
6. Der Zwerg und die Gerstenähre H. Seidel 18
10. Der arme Musikant und sein Kollege W. O. von Horn 35
12. Wie der alte Hermesbauer gestorben ist H. Hansjakob 42
13. Bruder Klaus und die treuen Tiere R. Baumbach 44