Latin Composition, Vol. 1: Based on Caesar (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Latin Composition, Vol. 1: Based on Caesar

My book is short. I allow myself a longer preface than is usual, since its plan differs considerably from the plans of its predecessors.

The problem of the best handling of Latin composition is confessedly a hard one; and, of all years, the second year Of the high-school course presents the greatest difficulty.

In no field are the existing materials for Latin study so unsatisfactory. In the first place, our books give us, on the average, at least three times as many lessons as can actually be used. The necessity to which the teacher is put of omitting two-thirds of the material seriously impairs any merits which the general plan Of a book may possess, and makes impossible, for either him or his pupils, a feeling of definite accomplishment at the end. In the second place, while some connected prose is now included in all the books, the matter for translation in those lessons which provide syntactical treatment, and from which, accordingly, the teacher will naturally make his selections for class work, consists of disconnected sentences, often mean ingless or even absurd, and not infrequently in direct contra diction to the statements of the Latin author on whom they are supposed to be based. Seemingly, too, the writers Of our books have taken little account of the Opportunity given by the Latin author here and there for an especially effective illustration Of constructions, and have also had no thought for the gradual developing of an organic syntactical whole. It is no wonder if the entire business of writing Latin seems to the student dull and unreal, and if this dullness and unreality are reflected back upon the reading of his Latin author.

The present book is conceived upon a different plan. The points which I have had especially in mind are the following.

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