Description
The following Leitfaden was written last winter [1881 82], and, printed in manuscript form, was used in the instruction of quite a large number of scholars. It is based upon the purely practical method of Sanskrit instruction, which was introduced at Haug’s and his own instance into the Indian secondary schools, and has become established there by means of R. G. Bhandarkar’s textbooks. The attempt to transfer this method to European universities is justified by the practical success which, as his experience shows, is to be gained thereby. For he has found that beginners master the first difficulties of Sanskrit very rapidly, and that learners take the most lively and continued interest in the study, if opportunity for activity on their own part is given them from the very first, and they are introduced at once into the living language. Moreover, the question of economy of time is made the weightier by the fact that the elements of Sanskrit form an important aid to students of Classical and Germanic Philology, yet to a large number of such are accessible only when the subject can be mastered in a short time. On the other hand, the disadvantages necessarily entailed by the purely practical method may readily be removed later by a short methodical exposition of the grammar. A detailed explanation of the changes in the grammatical part of the book would require too much space to be given here. They may be summarized in the statement that he has striven to remove all forms at present ?non quotable?.
