COMBINED SPANISH METHOD. A NEW PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL SYSTEM OF LEARNING THE CASTILIAN LANGUAGE, EMBRACING THE MOST ADVANTAGEOUS FEATURES OF THE BEST KNOWN METHODS. WITH A PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY, CONTAINING ALL THE WORDS USED IN THE COURSE OF THE WORK, AND REFERENCES BY ALBERTO DE TORNOS, A.M., FORMERLY DIRECTOR OF NORMAL SCHOOLS IN SPAIN, AND NOW TEACHER OF SPANISH IN NEW YORK: D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 1867. ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by D. APPLETON. & COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. It is an undoubted fact that in teaching, not only languages, but any other science or art, there neither is, nor can be, any other method than that of uniting theory with practice; and the various modes of applying the one to the other, the extent of the application, and the time at which it should be commenced, have produced the great number of methods hitherto published. This fact is now universally acknowledged, and each new author proclaims himself to be the only one who has put it into execution. The most insignificant little phrase-book does not fail to announce, in its introduction, that it combines theory and practice; and grammars containing nothing more than confused masses of rules, heaped one upon another, are entitled "Theoretical and Practical." It is admitted on all hands that much progress has been made within the last few years in the art of teaching languages; and, in testimony of this, we have only to mention the excellent oral and practical methods of Jacotot, Manesca, Ollendorff, Boulet, Robertson, and others who have followed in their footsteps, all of which are ably treated, and have done much good in their way. But each one of the grammarians referred to, satisfied with his own invention, looked with disdain upon that of his predecessor. Hence the enmity |