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LONDON AND GLASGOW :
WILLIAM COLLINS, SONS & COMPANY.

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PREFACE.

THE object of this book is, first, to provide a series of Exercises illustrative of Dr. Schmitz's Latin Grammar; next, to furnish a vocabulary of common Latin words to be committed to memory; and lastly, as far as possible, to prepare the pupil for more difficult translations from Latin into English and vice versa. The earlier sentences in the first part are either original, or are taken from the excellent German Exercise Books of Schultz and Frei. Further on, a large part or all of them are selected from Latin authors. The Exercises on the Syntax are taken entirely from the Latin authors themselves. It would of course have been better if the selection could have been confined to Cicero and Caesar; but there are some constructions occurring in Latin Syntax which are more readily illustrated from Livy and other writers.

With regard to the Vocabularies, it is hoped that the bulk of them will be found thoroughly useful. Here and there a sentence illustrative of a particular construction has made it necessary to introduce an out-of-the-way word, but in the main they are such as boys may profitably commit to memory. If this practice is insisted on, the pupils will come to the study of the Latin authors themselves furnished with a knowledge of most words of common occurrence.

In using the book, it is not by any means necessary to go straight through it; indeed, an observant teacher will soon discover a more advantageous method. Exercises on the more difficult points in the accidence of substantives, adjectives, and pronouns, are reserved till the pupil has mastered the regular verbs, so that up to Exercise 50 the book may be studied continuously. After that each teacher may use his own judgment. Some of the most necessary points in

elementary Syntax are introduced into the first part, with a statement of the rules, and references to the Grammar; but as each Exercise is independent of the others, and the Index will supply all the words that are wanted, it is quite possible, and perhaps desirable, for a class to study these points in a more extended way before completing the Accidence. In any case, it would be unwise to go through the Syntax in the order of the book, which is of course the order of the Grammar. It would be much better to take the first half of the Exercises on the commoner idioms before reading the whole systematically. In the Syntax, particularly in the commoner constructions, the compiler has endeavoured to make the earlier sentences easier than the others.

Teachers may also use the English-Latin Exercises according to their discretion. If the pupils have sufficient ability, they may be called upon to write them out without assistance; or they may have the help of reading them together in class before writing them; or the teacher may dictate easier sentences to be written without previous reading in class. Except with a class of marked ability, this last process is strongly to be recommended. If boys cannot do this, they have not mastered the subject. The Printed Exercises may thus become the training ground, while the Dictated Exercises are a test of progress.

It will be observed that the English Exercises are all translations from Latin. Perhaps the English of some may appear rather bald. In that case the compiler asks readers to remember that his object has been not to produce elegant English, but plain English that boys could render into Latin. He is aware of various defects in the work, especially in regard to the Vocabularies, where the same words occur several times in the course of the work, with different English or Latin equivalents, as the need arises. But if the work, as a whole, meets with the approval of teachers, such defects will not be of much importance, and it is hoped that the book will be found a worthy and useful companion to the Latin Grammar,

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