Hall Guillermo. Poco a poco. An elementary direct method for learning Spanish

Yonkers-on-Hudson: World Book Company, 1922. — 360 p.Speech in any language is the spontaneous result of a desire to express thought. Spontaneous expression of thought presupposes several factors. Chief among these is the existence in the mind of the speaker of the symbols of thought. These symbols are words and the groups of words that we call sentences. To employ these symbols spontaneously and correctly their use must be a habit. Now habit is the result of doing the same thing many times.
In other words, correct speech is the result not so much of knowledge as of habit. If anyone doubts the truth of this assertion, let him go to hear some public speaker and listen carefully for slips in grammar and in pronunciation. He is likely to find them aplenty. Why? Because the speaker does not know better? No, not that; but simply because under stress of enthusiasm or of emotion the man lapses unconsciously into the language heard in his early youth —that is, of the period before he studied grammar and rhetoric.
It follows, then, since correct speech is a habit, and habits are built up by repetition, that the young student needs much practice. In this book the required practice is provided by the Práctica en el Uso de Las Formas and by very abundant Ejercicios, Cuestionarios and Composiciones.