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Chief current Yale expert is greying, tweedy Professor Leonard Bloomfield, who riles old-fashioned language teachers a good deal. Some think that if they could teach soldiers (who take their lessons seriously) 15 hours a week they could produce speakers as fast as do linguisti-cians. Some say that if the aim is to train men to handle literature, the old grammar-ridden methods are superior. Bloomfield answers with a sharp no. He puts all his chips on learning to speak first, even if the eventual aim is to read.
Chief organizer of current U.S. intensive language programs is the American Council of Learned Societies, which, with Rockefeller backing, has launched courses in almost 30 Oriental and African tongues. Even their hottest opponents cannot deny the production of fluent colloquial speakers of the most difficult tongues in six to nine intensive months.