The subject of this paper is very much the same as that discussed in the programmatic article of Samuel H. Cross, “Teaching College Russian,” which appeared in the Slavonic and East European Review, American Series, in, 3 (1944), pp. 39-52. While I am not conscious of differing in my views fron those expressed by Professor Cross, I feel nevertheless the necessity of taking up the same topic once more, especially since in the meantime quite a lively controversy has been going on in professional magazines. I think also that we are now able to appraise the achievements of the Army Specialized Training Program and the so-called intensive method.

For the people in Lithuania, Christmas is not just one day, it is a succession of three days of festivity in which, however, Christmas Eve stands out as the most significant part.

Although Lithuania is not very large in area, we find numerous variations of customs and superstitions connected with Christmas Eve. What is said of one place, may not be true of another one. Various sources have contributed to the treasure of Lithuanian folklore and, since those forces have not been equally spread over the country, we find a great variety of popular beliefs and superstitious practices. About ninety-two percent of the population of Lithuania are Christians, the rest being mostly of the Hebrew faith. Of the Christian population of Lithuania, ninety-seven percent celebrate Christmas Eve at the same time as we do.

The importance for American scientists of closely following the published Russian researches in their fields is gaining general recognition in this country. In this connection the American Association of Teachers of Slavonic and East European Languages appointed about a year ago a Committee on Teaching Scientific Russian, and planned to hold, at its national meeting in Chicago, December 27-29, 1945, a session devoted to this problem.

There are writers who take the reader into a strange world as Alice was taken into Wonderland when she stepped through the Looking-Glass. Aron Tamasi,the Transylvanian, is such a writer. He knows the wants of simple folk, he is concerned with their dreams, he is a friend of those who have suffered injustice, and he also knows them when they are in search of happiness. His art is a half-oriental tapestry of pure faith, magic and sorcery; a hint of urbane things, of characteristics which are in line with folklore. In all his stories, novels and plays, he upholds the rights of man. He maintains that “we are born to this globe entitled to find shelter on it.”

Dezso Kosztolanyi, the Hungarian poet, novelist, short-story writer, critic and translator, played a prominent part in the cultural life of his native land, and for a time he was the center of heated controversies. His works are translated into English, Italian, French, German and other languages. His artistic consciousness determined his relationship to the Hungarian literary scene. Kosztolanyi was extremely word-conscious. He said that to play with words is to play with destiny. As a purifier of the Hungarian language, he emphasized the coordination of the nation's morality with the integrity of words. In his university years he was influenced by Professor Laszlo Negyesy's canons of Hungarian philology; and when Negyesy, at the age of seventy-two, renewed his campaign for linguistic purity, Kosztolanyi, then a recognized poet, joined this movement and added greatly to its success. He was not against neologisms, but against the corruption of the language.

Much praise has been bestowed by many a writer on the rôle played in the past by Tartu University as a seat of learning and a center of civilizing importance for North-Eastern Europe. Tartu, which the Germans called Dorpat and the Russians baptized Yuryev, has often been allotted a special place in the story of Baltic-German rise and fall. Yet on closer investigation it appears that almost nothing has been said so far about the influence exercised by Tartu on its immediate neighborhood, on the Estonians themselves on whose soil this University town flourished. German writers dwelt on Tartu as their Dorpat, their very own center of German scholarship, and described the contribution made by Tartu research to both the German and the Russian sphere.