find in understanding, and being understood, so far as his vocabulary goes, by Irish speakers. Under the Gouin method the pupils ought to be instructed in the language as it is spoken in their own neighbourhood. Hence every word they learn they can speak, and are readily understood. They are able, from the first, to use what Irish they have learned to acquire more, and every Irish speaker they meet becomes a teacher to them.
II. Language must be learned by sentences and not by words.
The opposite plan followed by book students constitutes one of their chief difficulties when they put down their books and hear the language spoken in ordinary conversation. The student is unable to distinguish the separate words, and is hopelessly confused. Moreover, although he may know all the words which he desires to use, he has to think out elaborate rules for building up his sentence, and if he forgets one of these rules he falls into some dreadful solecism and gets laughed at for his pains. In the oral method the language is invariably taught by sentences, and the student has no difficulty in distinguishing the words in ordinary conversation so far as his vocabulary carries him. His power of intuition is evolved and evoked for the construction of sentences—a more reliable power than that of memory.
III. The student must be made to think in the language he is learning.
This, of course, is necessary, whatever the system of teaching pursued, for no person can make much use of a language, as a spoken tongue, until he can
