It is maintained that if foreign language learning is included at the elementary school level, it should be done to make it possible for the large majority of the pupils to reach a certain minimum objective in secondary education. And, elementary schools must reach one common objective which is closely related to the minimum objective of secondary education. It follows that secondary schools should fully accept and recognize what has been achieved in the primary schools and start teaching at the point where the elementary schools stopped. It is reported that a minimum objective for secondary education has been developed and approved in a meeting of delegates from a dozen European countries. This objective, the "Threshold Level," is a systematic description of what is involved in using a language for general communication purposes. It is proposed that the Threshold Level could form the basis for the definition of an objective for the early teaching of modern languages. (Author/SW)