Excerpt from Common Sense in Teaching Modern Languages: An Address Read Before the Schoolmasters' Association of New York and Vicinity, Dec. 13, 1894

F I were to follow the plan Of the Old-time sermon-makers, I should naturally' speak on this subject under three heads 1) Common Sense, (2) Teaching, and (3) Modern Languages. Under the first head, however, nobody can tell another person anything, and under the second it is not likely that I can tell you a great deal. Still, before I begin to talk On the subject about which I hope I can tell you something, I wish to touch upon the other two, in order to make clear my starting point.

A few years ago I got from a man who seems to have been more popular then than now, a sort Of formula which has been a very useful part Of my mental furniture ever since, and expresses as well as anything my conception of what common sense means. I refer to the famous sentence, It is a condition and not a theory which confronts us. In ninety-nine out Of a hundred of the problems Of actual life, it is a condition and not a theory which Confronts us. And the man who has common sense is the man who is very sparing Of theories till he is sure Of all the conditions, and then applies to the conditions, from all the theories he has on the subject, those which rest on the most general and most nearly axiomatic principles.

Every act Of human effort has for its Object the accomplish ment of some result by the application Of certain means under certain conditions. A state of things as it exists before the act is to be changed into one more desirable. He is most successful who has the clearest understanding of what the existing state of things is, and Of the state Of things to be. Produced by the change, and who has at his command all the means which could be used to produce the desired result, and understands their rela tions, and has common sense to apply them in the right way and at the right time.

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