Latin and French: Dr. Marguirette Struble

Training School students could still study Latin, however, and in 1924 Dr. Marguirette Struble, one of the most beloved and longest-serving Laboratory School teachers, began her 37-year career. “Miss Struble” (as she unfailingly was called, although her male colleagues were duly accorded their title of “Dr.”) taught both Latin and French. She was born on May 29, 1901 near Iowa City, and earned her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Iowa.

Like Ida Fesenbeck, Dr. Struble began her career teaching Latin and French in the Rock Rapids (Iowa) school system, but she was soon recruited by the University of Iowa to teach at its Laboratory School. However, when she was only 23 years old, Iowa State Teachers College and its Training School called.

Dr. Struble was a perfect hire for the Training School because she engaged early on in cutting-edge research. In 1932, she co-adapted and edited with Helen M. Eddy, an edition for high school students of the famous French novel The Three Musketeers. Dr. Struble explained her work in a 1937 article in The Journal of Educational Research titled “The Construction of French Reading Material for Second Year High School.”

From 1898 to 1929, she explained, teachers of modern languages sought to follow the counsel of the Report of the Committee of Twelve of the Modern Language Association of America (1898). It called for teaching to center on the four aims of speaking, writing, understanding, and reading the language. However, by the 1920s, teachers began to confess that they “struggled to accomplish the impossible task of giving the pupil in two years’ time—for only a small proportion of her pupils continue to study longer—such an ability to read, speak, write and understand the language as would be permanently useful.”

As a result, in 1929 a new nationwide “Modern Foreign Language Study” called for a complete change of goals. Reading ability now was to be “the primary and essential objective to which all other aims shall be subordinated [in a two-year program] and to which all class activities must contribute or be discarded.” Here indeed, Dr. Struble exclaimed, was “a new outlook for the modern-language teacher!”

Dr. Struble immediately set to work in support of the new goal; that is, to create ideal reading matter to advance her students’ reading skills. She chose The Three Musketeers for many reasons:

“In the first place, it ranks high in favor among those stories of the world which are the common heritage of [hu]mankind and the favorites of children in many many languages. Moreover, Les Trois Mousquetaires is most popular with children of 14-15 years, the exact age in which we are primarily interested. The story has, however, a verve and a dash which captivate even an eleven-year-old, and which, indeed few adults can resist. It offers the further advantage of being almost equally popular with boys and girls. As Dumas’ best-known novel, it affords, too, the logical introduction to the other works of this ‘master of the art of story-telling.’”

The key was to present the novel in simple and common words—and in ways to enhance vocabulary growth. With scientific precision, Struble and Eddy adapted Les Trois Mousquetaires to include all the major plot incidents involving the hero d’Artagnan in a text of 185 pages, containing 45,000 words—but only a total vocabulary of 2,464 words and idioms. When a new word was introduced, it was given in bold type—and it also was inserted in the margin in the line of its first appearance. Whenever possible it was repeated three or more times in close succession and, thereafter, at gradually increasing intervals.

It helped, Dr. Struble explained, that “the essence of the novel is contained in the breathless action of its plot, development . . . dependent largely upon the use of dialogue, with a minimum of space and importance allotted to elaborate description.” The adapters provided resumes in French of omitted portions of the novel that were essential to the thread of the story. Each chapter, furthermore, was followed by a set of comprehension exercises in French on the content just read, and a section of word-study exercises designed to assist vocabulary-building. The comprehension exercises included questions as well as multiple-choice, true/false, and matching items:

“Conscious effort was made to use in these exercises words introduced either in the chapter or previously. The word-study material [brought] out salient points of the relationship between French and English, contain[ed] interesting word-histories, and by a variety of exercises aim[ed] to assist the memory by associations of synonyms, opposites, word-families and the like.”

Struble and Eddy followed their trail-blazing Les Trois Mousquetaires with Ecrivons in 1942 which included text and exercises from the Mousquetaires but also from the novel Madame Thérèse which tells the story of the French Revolution through a young boy’s eyes. The praising reviewer in The Modern Language Journal observed that the book was published in response to a demand from teachers:

“Ecrivons is unique in its uses of Dictées . . . .The vocabulary used is not stilted, but colloquial. The exercises are well-formulated, modern in type, and give effective application to the rules. The Grammaire contains many excellent teaching suggestions because of its ingenious arrangement.”

Or, as Dr. Struble summed up her work in 1932: “What greater challenge for the progressive teacher than the opportunity thus afforded of taking an active part, on the one hand, in creating the materials of her teaching or, on the other, of providing through scientifically conducted experiments the only adequate means for perfecting these materials into more useful instruments for the accomplishment of her purposes!”

Dr. Struble’s Latin instruction proved equally rich—as suggested by her course descriptions and her students’ response. “The two-year sequence in Latin,” she explained, “centers upon the Latin language, the Greco Roman civilization that it interprets, the country of Italy where it developed, and evidences of its cultural and linguistic influence upon the world of today”:

Latin I

The first-year course, open to students of grades nine through twelve, presents a series of readings in Latin, gradually increasing in difficulty, through which students become familiar with characteristic features of ancient Roman life, important people of the time, incidents from Roman history, and stories from classical mythology. The aim is progressive development of the ability to read Latin with comprehension, while at the same time acquiring a background of information valuable as a part of an individual’s general education.

Since more than half of the words in English are derived from Latin, practice in utilizing this close vocabulary relationship between the two languages is provided in two ways: (1) familiar English related words serve as an aid in figuring out and retaining the meaning of new Latin words, and (2) Latin words already learned can often serve as a key to unlock the meaning of unfamiliar English words that are met in increasing numbers from ninth grade onward.

Famous landmarks in Athens and in the Forum of Rome, likewise the excavated city of Pompeii, become readily recognizable through photos and comment, as do famous works of Greek and Roman art and characteristic features of classical architecture seen in ancient structures still preserved and in buildings of today (e.g., in our national capital). Attention is given to Latin abbreviations commonly used in English (lb., A.M., P.M., i.e., etc.), as well as to Latin expressions in general use (such as post mortem, terra firma, status quo), and to well known mottos (such as our national motto, those of the Marines and the Coast Guard, and of the State College of Iowa [UNI] and other schools.)

Each student is encouraged to plan and carry out an individual project connected with some phase of the course that has aroused his interest. For success and enjoyment in the course, daily preparation of 40-60 minutes is expected.

Latin II

The second-year course continues the aim, method and general emphasis of the first year. Reading material includes well-known stories from Roman history and a five act play by the Roman author Plautus. The latter forms part of a drama unit dealing with the invention of drama by the Greeks, its characteristics and original purpose, its adoption by the Romans, and its continuous influence upon ancient and modern times.

Roman admiration and imitation of Greek art and literature is stressed, together with debt to the Romans through whom Greco Roman civilization spread to all countries of the Roman Empire and thence to North and South America. Acquaintance with places of interest in Italy is expanded, as is the individual’s ability to use his knowledge of Latin to increase and illuminate his English vocabulary. Attention is given to Latin words that have come into English with no change in spelling (villa, stadium, doctor, crisis, apparatus, species), some of which retain in English their Latin plural (e.g., alumnus, alumni).

Individual projects are again encouraged. To derive from the course its potential values, it is expected that a student wil spend 40-60 minutes in daily preparation.

If Dr. Struble’s research blazed trails and provided materials for fellow teachers, her classroom teaching invariably has been described by her students (and by professional evaluators) as not only congenial but rich in range, depth, and light. On the first day of French, each student chose a French name. Barbara Kraft Wood, who became a teacher herself, says, “I still write my name as it was spelled in that class: Barbe.”

“She had light years of technical knowledge of her subject area,” adds Susan d’Olive Mozena, who, like Wood, studied with Dr. Struble every day for four years, first Latin and then French. “She knew that she could only have us for two years of Latin and two years of French, so instead of trying to cram in all the Latin and French she could—and she did a good job of that—she wanted us to know (and here is where her genius was)—about the culture and the context of those languages.”

Patricia Severin DeMey, who also became a teacher, confirms that “She taught lots of history, literature, and architecture all entwined with the Latin language lessons. She referred to the Iliad and Odyssey in her storytelling. We heard about Helen of Troy and the Trojan horse, Agamemnon, Priam, Menelaus. We saw pictures of the wonderful ruins still to be seen in Italy and Greece. When I was in Italy, I purchased a calendar of pictures of so many of the places she taught us about and sent it to her when I got back.”

Because French is a modern living language, at Christmas time Dr. Struble would tell the students what a French family would be doing around Christmas. In the spring, the class would celebrate Mardi Gras with pralines.

Robert Stephens, who became a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, confesses that he has “very fond memories” of Dr. Struble: “She impacts my life to this day . . . how I pronounce various words and think about language. Of course, she was the best English teacher going . . . that’s where I really learned English.”

“She wanted us all to be successful,” Wood explains. “I always thought that test questions had to be a great mystery and I had better study. The day before the test she would have study questions written on the board behind a large map and the class would go over each question. On the day of the test she would roll up the map and those same questions would be our test.”

Support and encouragement also came in the form of celebration of each student’s birthday, complete with candy and the singing of “Happy birthday to you” in Latin or French. Dr. Struble would pass around a box of Russell Stover chocolates, starting with the birthday honoree. “The last time I saw her, 30-plus years after graduation, she reminded me that I liked the nuts and chews,” Stephens recalls. “What a great teacher and great mind!”

In the summer of 1955, Dr. Struble helped host the second national convention of the Junior Classical League, an organization of high school Latin Clubs. More than 500 students from 26 states convened on the ISTC campus for a series of workshops, programs, and elections. Dr. Struble led the Campus High School Junior Classical League Club, but clubs also existed in the Cedar Falls Junior and Senior High Schools and five clubs flourished in the Waterloo Schools. (The National Junior Classical League continues to thrive today with more than 45,000 members.)

In 1956, Dr. Struble took two of her Latin students to the third Junior Classical League Convention, held at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Marna Lou Prior Xanos, one of the students, recalls that Dr. Struble “emphasized speaking with the correct French pronunciation. She wanted us to be able to go to France and converse in French without hesitation. Because she taught us to speak accurately, my University of Iowa French professor was impressed by the way I could pronounce my words. He entered me into a poetry reading contest and I placed. I credit Miss Struble for my winning. She taught me well, as she did the others.”

Dr. Marguirette Struble exuded, throughout her days, the qualities of many of the best Lab School teachers. She taught people, not subject matter. She wanted her students to succeed and she created ways for this to happen—in small and large form. She built a classroom based on mutual respect and common purpose in which she modeled the love of learning and showed that language study meant more than nouns and verbs, but cultural breadth, and the ethics of love. She unceasingly helped her students see the connections between Latin and French and their own English language and the Greco Roman and French cultural links to the students’ current lives and world.

In 1969, the Laboratory School’s accreditation was renewed by the North Central Association of Secondary Schools. Dr. Camille LeVois, one of the evaluators from the University of Iowa’s Department of Foreign Languages, wrote this in her report: “I saw Dr. Struble teach a Latin class that is undoubtedly the best I have ever seen anywhere, anytime.”

Read more in our faculty bio of Marguerite Struble