An encounter with the Ollendorff Method

Adler's Practical grammar is an Ollendorff.

This means, it follows exactly the methodology for aquiring a language developed by Henri Ollendorff. In the following excerpt, basil Hall describes his experience of studying German using this method. Once can satisfactorily substitute Latin for German in what follows, as Adler's textbook is in effect a Latin translation of his own English-German edition of Ollendorff's German textbook.

Skimmings, or “A winter at Schloss Hainfeld” by Basil Hall. Pg 80

"By good fortune however I fell in with a truly philosophical professor of German at Paris M Ollendorff author of a new and most luminous method of teaching that language He soon satisfied me of what I had indeed myself begun to suspect that German to be understood properly must be attacked exactly like mathematics and that as there is no royal road to knowledge in the one case so is there none in the other I gave a sigh or two over the ten months labour I had almost entirely thrown away and commenced the study anew through he medium of M Ollendorff's method which well deserves the title of the Euclid of German After six months close application I can venture to pronounce that by his method alone so far as I have been able to understand the subject can this very difficult but very charming language be taught without confusion To those who like me have none of that readiness by which instinctively as it were foreign tongues are breathed in by some people and are made use of seemingly without effort such a method is quite invaluable By it the scholar advances step by step understands clearly and thoroughly every thing he reads and as he goes on he becomes sensible that all he learns he retains and all that he retains is useful and practically applicable At the same time he scarcely knows how he has got hold of it so slightly marked are the shades of daily progression and sq gentle is the rise that he feels no unpleasant fatigue on the journey Of course the student is called upon to exert no small degree of patient application and he must consent to devote a considerable portion of his time to this pursuit but he will have the encouraging conviction that every of effort is well bestowed I wish I could persuade this admirable teacher to publish his work in English and in England and to fix himself in London where his abilities his knowledge and his skill in teaching so difficult a language in the most agreeable and patient manner I ever witnessed would soon earn for him the distinction he deserves I write in these strong terms of M Ollendorff's method because I feel convinced that a familiarity with it would go far to spread the knowledge of this delightful language in England where of all countries in the world it is most likely to be duly appreciated The almost matchless beauties of German not only from their own excellence but from their analogy to those of our own literature and the great similarity of character between the two people are calculated to produce a much greater effect with us than elsewhere Independently also of the wholesome pleasure which belongs to an elegant pursuit the study of German may do much good not only by the generous cultivation of the national taste and the vigorous exercise of individual thought which it requires but by its placing within our reach an immense store of mental merchandize in exchange for which the labour of six months is the cheapest possible payment"