Pagina:A First Latin Reader.pdf/4

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FIRST LATIN READER

attack a simple passage from Caesar or Nepos, not as a Chinese puzzle by laborious effort to be tortured into something remotely resembling sense, but as a story from the reading of which some pleasure and profit is to be derived.

For the development of a system of Latin-English exercises so graded as to serve the purpose for which the Reader is made, of course no Latin author was available; and the text, therefore, is necessarily for the most part original. With the idea of stimulating interest, and to bring into play the necessary vocabulary and syntax while yet meeting halfway the many who do “not care for (foreign) war,” the first hundred lessons have been made to deal almost entirely with matters of American history, the initial series (1—45) summing up briefly and chronologically the main events of the years 1492—1783, and the second group (46—100) comprising short anecdotes assembled without regard for chronological sequence. Next follow two narratives from Caesar simplified (101—125), and the concluding series (126—140) is made up of selections from the original text of Caesar, Nepos, Suetonius, Sallust, and Cicero. This final group, of course, is not a part of the gradatim plan, but was added that the student might have the satisfaction of reading some “real Latin.” The passage from Suetonius (131), chiefly because of its large vocabulary, will probably be found too difficult for most pupils; if so, the intrinsic interest of the passage may make it seem worth the teacher’s while to undertake a translation for the class.

With a view to discouraging the habit of constant recourse to the general vocabulary, a series of lesson preparations has been provided in the form of a word list showing the important new words in each successive exercise: moreover, with the exception of proper names and