Overview

The object of this book is to help teachers to decide what parts of syntax are most necessary in the first four years of the study of Latin and in what order they should be introduced. It is assumed that our chief aim will be to develop the power of reading Latin, and that therefore we must make our pupils familiar with the constructions which occur commonly in school reading. Certain books which are very generally read at an early stage in the schools of the United States are selected for scrutiny, viz. Caesar, B.G. I-IV.; Cicero, in Catilinam I.-IV., de imperio Pompei, pro Archia; Virgil, Aen. I.-VI. Statistics of the syntax of these books have been elaborately worked out by fifty collaborators, and the results are set before us in tables and diagrams. The Introduction is excellent. In our own country the teaching of Latin is too much governed by tradition. The hours devoted to the subject have been much cut down of late years. Boys begin later, and in many cases leave off earlier than they used, but the course of study is not sufficiently adapted to the new conditions, and numbers of details are learned in the early stages which the pupil will probably never find useful, rare words, exceptional forms, unusual constructions. These things are well worthy of study when they occur, but a knowledge of them is not an indispensable preliminary to the reading of Caesar and Ovid nor to the writing of Latin Prose. They retard and discourage the learner so that he feels that he is making but little progress with the language, and is therefore inclined to go on the Modern Side and try some other studies. The merit of this book is that it shows not only what parts of syntax may be omitted or passed over lightly in the first few years, but also what parts must become so familiar that they can be applied without any conscious effort. -The Classical Review, Vol. 34 [1920]

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