If he fails to see the utility of this work for the class and yet feels that some oral drill is advisable, he may work over any of the Latin sentences of the review lesson into interrogative form. The questions may be answered practically by the sentences as given in the book, or the form of the question may be varied in such a manner as to require a slightly different or very different form of answer. The first three sentences of Bennett's First Year Latin, lesson XXXI, page 195, are as follows: 1. Hae civitates in amicitia Haeduorum manserant. 2. Helvetii fines angustos habebant. 3. Hostes signa militaria iam viderant. Questions may be formed by the teacher to be answered orally as part of the review-lesson, thus: 1. Cuius (cuiusnam or quorum hominum) in amicitia manserant hae civitates? 2. Quales fines habebant Helvetii? 3. Quid iam viderant hostes? The oral work may be kept strictly to the text as indicated above, or the teacher may go as far afield as he chooses. After the simple question on number 2, he may thus continue: Angustos non latos fines habebant. Intelligitisne quid significet adjectivum "latos"? Latus et angustus contraria significant. Haec rima [pointing to some crack and indicating the proper dimension] est angusta; haec ianua [indicating the doorway] est lata. Next, this new material is to be worked over in such a way that the pupils will be obliged to employ it in their answers. A little practice will give the teacher much facility in this work and increase his confidence. A limited use of this oral work is particularly valuable during first-year work and there is nothing to prevent its use in successive years. HOW TEACHERS MAY TRAIN THEMSELVES IN ORAL LATIN As one of the main difficulties of introducing the direct method is due to the teacher's own inability to use the language, the following additional suggestions are offered to assist in selftraining in spoken Latin: 1. Take any easy text-the Puer Romanus, for example, or Nutting's First Latin Reader. II. C. Nutting, A First Reader. New York: American Book Co., 1913. Kirkland, Fabulae Faciles, Longmans, is also suited for this work. 2. Read the first page, say of Puer Romanus. 3. Write down a series of questions upon the text. As the narrative happens to be in the first person, it will be simpler to formulate the questions in the third person, thus: De quo (or quonam) Lucius est narraturus? Quot annos Lucius natus est? Quo nomine appellatus frater Luci est? Quid designat Sextus? Cornelius? Pollio? and so on. 4. After writing a number of such questions, answer them orally without consulting the book. 5. Finally taking the series of questions as cues, form from them orally a continuous account in the simple style of the text. The teacher will find that memorizing easy stories and simple passages will greatly facilitate the acquisition of Latin in its colloquial forms. HOW TO USE THE DIRECT METHOD If now the teacher is not content with using a certain amount of oral Latin in connection with the ordinary beginning books as indicated above, the method to which the writer of this article is somewhat partial, but wishes to employ the direct method proper, he should secure the teachers' addition of the book by Chickering and Hoadley, mentioned on page 2, and make a careful study of it some months before he attempts to use it. The directions are given in great detail and the book is absolutely consistent and true to the principles of the direct method. Some additional help may be had, especially in the way of increasing one's grammatical vocabulary, by securing the various volumes of the Lingua Latina -eries mentioned on page 1. The first year's work is the really difficult task in teaching by the direct method proper. After the first year, the work is comparatively easy for the teacher who has any adequate command of conversational Latin. TEACHING LATIN COMPOSITION BY THE DIRECT METHOD One of the most gratifying results of the use of the direct method is the fact that pupils can be taught to write simple continuous Latin prose even during the first year, and the drudgery of turning English sentences of dubious idiom into equally dubious Latin is avoided. Various methods of conducting this work will suggest themselves to the teacher when once he begins to study the problem. The following is a method found effective by the writer of this article: 1. Read to the class a simple story in Latin explaining in Latin that which needs explanation. 2. Have the pupils take at dictation a series of questions on this text so worded that the questions will contain all the words and ideas necessary for the continuous account. 3. Have the pupils write out their account in declarative and continuous form. It is surprising how soon ordinary pupils will learn to write simple primer-style Latin by this method, and with none of the distaste usually aroused by lessons in prose composition. By explaining the Latin idiom in respect to the use of connectives and by selecting proper models, pupils may be gradually introduced to the more intricate and involved periodic structure. One may also, in connection with these lessons, give practice in writing any construction that he may desire to take up. Thus if he wishes to have some drill on result clauses, he may take a suitable sentence from the narration and throw it into a form that would require the result clause, explain the use, and show how it would be used in different tenses. This work is not at all difficult and is very effective. It does require facility of expression on the part of the teacher, but a little practice will give the required facility. Should the teacher feel desirous of practicing further in expressing his own ideas in written form and of receiving suggestions, he may address any such pieces of work to the Latin Department of the State University and they will receive prompt attention. Should this be done, it is suggested that only such subjects be discussed as would probably be familiar to a Roman and able to be expressed by him in classical style, this in order that practice may be given in a vocabulary and style that will be useful to the teacher in his work. It is perfectly possible to discuss almost any topic in Latin, but some topics require the constant use of neologisms and this, for our present purpose, is undesirable. II. REMARKS ON THE TEACHING OF CAESAR, CICERO, AND VIRGIL CAESAR It is remarkable that teachers persist so uniformly in teaching the first four books of the Gallic War. Doubtless, where preparation is made to take the State High School Board examinations, this is about all that can be done. Where schools do not feel obliged to take these, it would seem natural that a second-year reader such as that of Greenough, Dodge and Daniell, would be used. The advantage of such a book is that a teacher does not have to plunge directly into the difficulties of Caesar with one year's preparation. He introduces his pupils in such a book as that mentioned, to interesting stories, fables, and letters, passes to biography and poetical selections and then to judiciously selected passages of Caesar. The work is a fair equivalent in amount to the first four books of Caesar. For those who are teaching Caesar exclusively, attention is called to a new edition of Caesar, De Bello Gallico, by T. Rice Holmes. This is the most valuable annotated edition that has yet appeared. Every teacher of Caesar should secure a copy, as it clears up many difficult points. The work is not intended or suited for highschool pupils. It may be remarked that the only good English rendering of Caesars is by the same author. CICERO Sihler's life of Cicero entitled, Cicero of Arpinum, has just appeared. It is a fairly satisfactory biography of Cicero for general reference, but the style is faulty and it is not a delight to read. The Strachan-Dividson biography is still the most illuminating in reference to Cicero's connection with the political events of his time, and the English is faultless. VIRGIL W. Y. Sellar's Virgil1o is the best study upon the poet that has appeared in English. Theodore C. Williams' translation of Vir Second Year Latin. Boston: Ginn & Co., 1899. * Oxford: Clarendon Press; American Branch, 29 West 32d St., N. Y. Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War. New York: Macmillan, 1899. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1914. 10 Oxford Press, American Branch, 29 West 32 St., N. Y., 1897. gil's Aeneid into blank verse is distinctly a work of high order and the best verse-translation in modern English. Metrical renderings, preferably into blank verse, may be made a very valuable and interesting element in the teaching of Virgil. Any teacher who has a feeling for rhythm can produce very satisfactory verse renderings of selected passages of the review les In almost any class in Virgil, there will be found several pupils who have a natural feeling for rhythm. Such students should be encouraged to make translations of their own. If the teacher has little feeling for rhythm, a few passages from Williams may be written out for the pupils and the structure of blank verse explained. Those who have the ability to do this sort of work can then be discovered by assigning review passages to be rendered in metrical form. Excellent results with high-school pupils have been attained in the work, and it is an effective means of arousing literary appreciation. The following passages are cited to show what pupils can do in the way of metrical renderings: Aeneid I, 579-589 Profoundly moved by her kind words, they long Aeneid III, 135-146 'Twas at This time that hulks were beached upon the shore 11 Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1908. |