There were 1,035 students enrolled in the department in 1939-40.
Methods of instruction. — German instruction in the University of Michigan has, of course, been exposed to the various pedagogical fads of the teaching profession and of educational experimenters during the course of nearly a century, but the sane views of the various heads of the department have always prevented great excesses. With prudent conservatism the department has kept in mind the fact that this is an American institution, hence the main objective of the instruction is a reading knowledge of the German language.
In Professor Fasquelle's time there was little to distinguish the teaching of ancient and of modern languages; both were impressed upon the student's mind by dictionary, grammar, and written work, whereas conversation was practically ignored.
With Evans, Thomas, and Hench, Germanic philology was stressed and the interrelations of English and the foreign language were emphasized. Under Hempl's brief chairmanship German phonetics assumed major importance and a good pronunciation was considered the principal essential of any serious work. The direct-method system of instruction reached the University of Michigan shortly after the new century began, but Winkler's conservative attitude prevented its being carried to extremes in the German classrooms.
The present tendency to treat a modern language as a mere incidental in the cultural pattern of the foreigners who speak it — to relegate German linguistic instruction to the position of an orientation course in German civilization — has at present no advocates in our corps of instructors.
The faculty of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures has included the names of a considerable number of outstanding scholars. Edward P. Evans lived abroad after his resignation and became a scholar and littérateur of acknowledged importance, writing with equal facility books in German and in English, e.g., Evolutional Ethics and Animal Psychology (1898), Beiträge zur amerikanischen Literatur- und Kulturge-schichte (Stuttgart, 1898).
Professor Calvin Thomas was in his day perhaps the best-known Germanic scholar in America, and his Complete German Grammar still remains the outstanding textbook in its class. He was especially proficient in his work on Goethe and was a pioneer among American scholars in employing the Weimar archives. His edition of Faust was his most important contribution in this field, although his Tasso and Hermann und Dorothea give abundant evidence of his accuracy and erudition.
George Allison Hench was a distinguished philologist and research scholar of his day, already recognized on both sides of the Atlantic, although he was only thirty-three at the time of his death. His great contributions to philology are the Monsee Fragmente and Der althochdeutsche Isidor, but his name also appears under many articles in scholarly publications of his time.
Max Winkler was a worthy successor of such men as Thomas and Hench, and his great erudition is evidenced by his meticulously annotated editions of many German classics, for example, Emilia Galotti, Egmont, Wallenstein, and Iphigenie.
Jonathan A. C. Hildner, whose retirement came in 1938, leaves behind him the record of a long career of inspirational teaching and the remembrance of a fatherly interest in his students. Professor Hildner also was the author of many books and articles, of which the most notable is, possibly, his scholarly edition of Götz von Berlichingen.
