In other fields victory has often been won by dividing the difficulties to be overcome; and it is suggested that this successful policy be applied here by concentrating upon a single problem at the start, leaving the others for later treatment.
In pursuance of this plan, the present volume, which is designed primarily for use in the first half of the third year, concerns itself chiefly with the matter of vocabulary. Complexity of sentence structure is everywhere avoided, the thought is simple and directly expressed, and the units are so short that the pupil may hope to accomplish something definite at one sitting.
Casual inspection will doubtless leave the impression that the vocabulary of the book is rather extensive. This is a necessary consequence of the variety of the selections; for the chaffing of slaves, the story of Atalanta’s race, and a description of the eruption of Vesuvius each calls for different phraseology. However, about a third of the vocabulary of the volume is made up of words that occur but once; and, with the exception of proper names, these words are given in the footnotes on the page with the text, and they do not appear in the general vocabulary. The latter will be found to be of the same general range and character as in most third-year books, and perhaps even more compact than some.
Here, too, as with other word lists, the student will be much helped by a little previous drill on the meanings of the common prefixes. Indeed, such a background virtually reduces the number of words to be learned; for example, given the verb dūcō, a properly trained pupil should have little need for recourse to the general vocabulary for addūcō, dēdūcō, indūcō, prōdūcō, redūcō, and the like.
If the first semester of the third year is thus devoted chiefly to the task of becoming familiar with the new vocabulary, the facility so gained will do much to rob of their terrors the difficulties postponed to the following term. The conven-
