German-Texan Heritage Society Newsletter, Volume 9, Number 3, Fall 1987 Page: 161
[73] p. : ill.View a full description of this periodical.
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GERMAN HERITAGE FOR NICKELS AND DIMES .
By Helga von Schweinitz
It's not depression glass I hunt for at estate sales. Pre-Columbian
first editions are not what I hope to discover in our local Goodwill store
and in the Salvation Army thrift shop. I am propelled to bargain centers
by a rare affliction: I collect books and magazines related to the
German-American heritage, most of them in German. They might have been
one of the few tangible links to the culture an immigrant family came
from: other books were once helping in the teaching of German, and then
there were publications designed to fortify the reader of German in his
moral standards and in his quest for a Christian and healthy (1) life
style.
And what an amusing collection I have built up!
Being a teacher of German and in perpetual search of new material I -
started out with old school books. My absolute favorite was published in
1887 under the title "Classic German Course". There is not a single
German word in that book. And we think we are too easy on today's
students. "Beginners' German", 1933, accommodates the student by
completely ignoring the "du", the pronoun used when talking to friends,
family, God, animals and children. This way it eliminates all the
problems with the verb forms after "du".
A surprise must have been the false promise implied by the title "The
Easiest German Reading for Learners Young or Old", 1898, when on the first
pages one finds such meaningful phrases as "...meine schwarze Henne, die
legt Eier fur Herren (...my little black hen, it lays eggs for gentlemen)"
and "Braucht ein Hund eine PerUcke? (Does a dog need a wig?)". It does
make me wonder about educators in those days.Compared to today's dialogs like "Guten Tag, wo ist der Bahnhof?
(Good day, where is the station?)", the old books testify to a more
pastoral time with "Hans trieb seine Kuh ruhig vor sich her (John drove
his cow quietly in front of himself)", and to a more illustrious era in
grammar excercises on The Absolute Accusative: "Der Kaiser sitzt im
Untersberg, die goldene Krone auf dem Haupte (The Kaiser is sitting in the
Untersberg, the golden crown on his head)".-
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German-Texan Heritage Society. German-Texan Heritage Society Newsletter, Volume 9, Number 3, Fall 1987, periodical, Autumn 1987; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1507402/m1/23/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting German-Texan Heritage Society.