The question of pronunciation and accent has been haunted by curious
prejudices. An English accent in a foreign tongue has been for some
speakers a refuge for their shyness, and for others a stronghold of
their patriotism. The first of these feared that they would not be truly
themselves unless their personality could take shelter beneath an accent
that was unmistakably from England, and the others felt that it was like
hauling down the British flag to renounce the long-drawn English
"A-o-o." And, curiously, at the other extreme, the slightest tinge of an
English accent is rather liked in Paris, perhaps only among those
touched with Anglomania. But now we ought to be able to acquire whatever
accent we choose, even when living far away from every instructor,
having the gramophone to repeat to us untiringly the true Spanish
"manana" and the French "ennui." And the study of phonetics, so much
developed within the last few years, makes it unpardonable for teachers
of modern languages to let the old English faults prevail.
We have had our succession of methods too. The old method of learning
French, with a _bonne_ in the nursery first, and then a severely
academic governess or tutor, produced French of unsurpassed quality-But
it belonged to home education, it required a great deal of leisure, it
did not adapt itself to school curricula in which each child, to use the
expressive American phrase, "carries" so many subjects that the hours
and minutes for each have to be jealously counted out.
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