The Maine West language department can well be proud of its instructors and equipment. This department has turned out such students as George House, who, after taking four years of Latin at Maine West, went on to do graduate work in his freshman year in college; and Karen Barrett, who became the first student in the history of Monmouth college to receive advanced placement in Russian.

Four of West's five languages carry a strong accelerated program, and three of them offer accelerated classes for the fourth year student.

Next year will herald the beginning of a new and perhaps startlingly different language department. In the fall of 1963 Maine West will receive 10 freshmen who will have already completed four years of Spanish in grammar school. At the present time 10 other students in the seventh grade have completed their third year in Spanish. These first two groups of 10 are the pilot groups for a much larger group and are all part of an astounding experiment in language. If these pilot groups fare well in the special program being prepared for them, West will be receiving 490 new freshmen previously trained in Spanish.

Ready to meet this new crop of students will be a prepared teaching faculty. The language teaching staff of Maine West ranks among the best in the state. Ten out of the 11 instructors have actually studied their languages in the countries in which they are spoken. For the past three years nearly half of West's language teachers have spent their summers studying in universities in either Europe or South America.

Virtually all of our foreign language teachers will have had MDEA institutes by next fall," expressed Mr. Daniel Holbrook, chairman of the language department. "Several of them will have had secondary institutes in a foreign country. Of West's 11 competent language instructors, eight have their masters degrees, and it will be only a matter of time before the other three have gained theirs.''

Mr. Robert Meute teaches French during the year and Spanish during the summer. Mr. Robert Curtis teaches both Latin and German. Mr. Gustave Carlson is fluent in all five languages taught here.

In summing up West's language department, Mr. Holbrook observed, "I know for a fact that three years of a language at Maine West is worth two years of language at college, while in other cases it would only be one and a half."