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University Daily Kansan
Wednesday. April 27, 1955
Youngsters Learn Foreign Language
By MARION McCOY
Six hundred eighty students in the fifth and sixth grades are now taking Spanish, French, or German in the Lawrence elementary schools. This progress in education began in 1949 through a University class in Spanish methods taught by Agnes Brady, associate professor of Romance languages.
Working under the theory that by learning a language a student is able to understand a culture, the University was one of 16 institutions in 1954 that offered a summer workshop in teaching foreign languages in elementary schools.
Nineteen Spanish classes now are being taught in Lawrence elementary schools. Culture, reading, and simple grammar are emphasized, and conversation is the basic teaching. Nine French classes are taught with German language and English work. Six German classes feature songs, legends, and German literature, with an emphasis on speaking and oral work.
The German classes began in 1953. The language was taught first in German clubs after school and then on the radio before it was started in the elementary schools.
It is not compulsory for elementary students to study a foreign language. The department of German sent questionnaires to the parents of students, and 294 were returned enthusiastically. Only 29 parents were not interested in having their children learn a foreign language.
Practice teaching also has been worked in with the foreign language program. Edith Sortor, education junior, is the first University student who has received credit for practice teaching in a foreign language in an elementary school.
gudge in an elementary school.
To emphasize the purpose of learning foreign languages, Le Cercle Francais and Der Deutsche Vereinheit French one German clubs, will hold a joint meeting in the Jayhawk room of the Student Union May 5 to present the fifth and sixth graders who have learned a language and illustrate what they have learned.
The Modern Language Association of America, devoted to the study of modern language and literature, reported a study in 1954 which indicated there is a favorable age for learning a second language.
"the human brain has a plasticity at that time and a special capacity for acquiring speech which is lost later," said Dr. Wilder G. Penfield, brain surgeon and director of Montreal Neurological institute.
"The mind specializes in the learning of language before the ages of 10 to 14. After that gradually, inevitably, it seems to become rigid, slow, less receptive," he said. Newsweek magazine states that in 1954 more than 1,000 foreign languages were taught in public elementary schools in the U.S.
The Kansas Relays high jump standard is one of the best in the nation. Robert Walters of Texas leaped 6 feet 8 3/16 inches in 1949 to establish the record.
Salk Vaccine Shipments Cut
Washington — (U.R.) The government ordered all polio Salk vaccine manufactured by the Cutter laboratories of Berkeley, Calif, withheld from the public pending investigation of six paralytic cases among children inoculated with it.
Dr. Leonard A. Scheele, U.S. Surgeon General, notified the laboratories of the action just before noon.
It was the first move taken by the government since the Salk shots were licensed for public use.
Cutter laboratories, one of six firms producing the serum, were ordered "to withdraw all lots of vaccine manufactured in its laboratories from distribution."
The Public Health service said Cutter laboratories "immediately agreed to comply." It said "all state and territorial health departments are being advised of this action."
The service said the six cases of paralytic polio had occurred among children who had received shots produced by Cutter laboratories. The cases were reported, it said, from four cities in California—San Diego, Ventura, Napa and Oakland—and one in Chicago.
Two cases apparently were reported in one of the California cities, but the service could not immediately identify it.
The Health Service said it ordered the Cutter vaccine withdrawn "until completion of an investigation which is now underway."
There was no immediate indication how long the inquiry would take.
The Dra Valley in French Morocco grows more than 300 varieties of dates, says the National Geographic Society.
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