ANALYTICAL LATIN EXERCISES.

PART I.

ACCIDENCE AND SIMPLE SENTENCES,

WITH THE

ANALYSIS OF SENTENCES APPLIED TO LATIN.

BY

C. P. MASON, B.A., F.C.P.,

FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.

FOURTH EDITION.

LONDON:

BELL & SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

EP

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FIRST NOTIONS OF GRAMMAR.

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PREFACE.

THE present work is an attempt to embody the results of many years' experience in teaching Latin, and to develop the methods found most effectual in overcoming the difficulties that usually beset the beginner.

The teaching of the Accidence of Latin in this work is based upon the system of Stems, or Crude Forms. This, however, is applied in such a way, that the book may be used without inconvenience by those who prefer the old-fashioned method. For the purpose of calling forth the learner's powers of observation and discrimination, question-exercises on the inflections of words have been introduced. Learners who go through them will acquire the invaluable habit of scrutinizing carefully the forms of the Latin words that they meet with. These exercises, however, are not an essential part of the method, and may be omitted if time cannot be secured for them.

It is assumed that the learner who uses this work has some elementary Latin Grammar to refer to. It has always appeared to me better that he should be taught from the beginning to find what he wants in the grammar that he is intended to use habitually, than that he should have his grammar printed piece-meal in his book of exercises. Constant reference to his grammar enables him to fit the partial details brought before him into their place in the grammatical system, and this helps him both to understand and to remember them better. References are accordingly given to the Public School Latin Primer, Mr. Key's ‘Short Latin Grammar,' Mr Roby's 'School Latin Grammar,' and the grammars of Dr. Smith and Dr. Schmitz.

That beginners may see clearly the structure of a Latin sentence,

and be enabled to write one themselves correctly, it is of vital importance that their attention should first be directed to the essential constituents of a sentence, beginning, of course, with the Subject and the Predicate. The structure of sentences does not depend upon the adjectives, but upon the substantives and verbs that are used. In this book accordingly adjectives are not dealt with until the commonest functions of Cases, Voices, and Tenses have been discussed. It is strongly recommended that learners should be practised in analysing sentences from the beginning, in the manner set forth in the appendix, pp. 66, &c.

At the end of the book (pp. 74, &c.) will be found a translation of the sentences given as Examples in the various Lessons. It is intended that these Examples should be thoroughly mastered, so that the learner may clearly understand the constructions illustrated, and be able both to give the English rendering of the Latin sentences, and to turn the translated sentences back again into Latin, before he proceeds to the Exercises that follow. An enormous amount of time and labour is usually wasted by allowing beginners to make the mistakes which are inevitable when they are set to apply principles and rules which they imperfectly comprehend, and then having to correct these mistakes, which might have been guarded against by patient and careful explanation and practice. The correction itself, unfortunately, is too often allowed to be a correction and nothing more, so that the same blunders are repeated in subsequent efforts. Nothing hinders real progress so much as impatience to get over the ground. It would save a great deal of time in the long run, if all exercises intended to be written were first discussed viva voce with the teacher.

A good deal of writing is of course necessary to secure accuracy, but it is quite possible to waste time in writing which would be more fruitfully employed in oral instruction. A great deal of the work in this manual will be most profitably dealt with viva voce.

The Vocabularies should be committed to memory as they present themselves. The learner will thus become master of a pretty extensive stock of common and useful words, and be saved much of the labour and loss of time caused by having to look the words out over and over again.

The analytical method, which is patent enough as regards the way in which the formation of words is dealt with, has been pursued, though less obviously, in all the syntactical part of the exercises. The constructions employed have been carefully varied and contrasted in such a way, that the learner cannot possibly avoid the necessity of carrying on in his own mind an incessant process of analysis and comparison.

It has always appeared to me a mistake to distract the attention and encumber the memory of the beginner with a number of idiomatic expressions which are of little service to him in the early stages of his progress. The best use he can make of his time and effort is to get a thorough mastery of elementary facts and principles.

The use of the Subjunctive Mood is not dealt with in Part I. of these exercises, but is carefully and systematically discussed in Part II.

"DUKESELL,"

CHRISTCHURCH ROAD, STREATHAM HILL,

May, 1885.

C. P. MASON.