Latin Composition for Secondary Schools (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Latin Composition for Secondary Schools

The purpose of the study of Latin Composition is generally conceded to be, not to teach the art of writing Latin as an end in itself, but rather to increase the student's familiarity with the style, idioms, and vocabulary of the authors he is reading, and at the same time to afford effective instruction in syntax. It is for the accomplishment of this twofold purpose that the following three years' course has been prepared. The course is divided into three parts, designed respectively for the second, third, and fourth years of the secondary school, and is of the following character: -

Part I is based on Cæsar's Gallic War for vocabulary, idioms, and general content; but in syntax the exercises are made to conform to the systematic presentation of the subject which characterizes the lessons throughout. To take up constructions in Latin composition in the capricious order in which they happen to occur in the accompanying text has been shown to be pedagogically unsound and fatally weak in that the subjects are not presented in their proper order or logical course of development, and the student is unable to bring the disorganized bits of knowledge thus acquired into a strong and well-organized synthetic whole. The constructions have, therefore, been taken up in their grammatical sequence, and the exercises are preceded by appropriate grammar-lessons; next follow selected idioms to be memorized, and finally the sentences aim to give practical and illuminating expression to the syntax and idioms that precede.

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