A Latin Reader

PREFACE

The way of the begin­ner in Latin is only too often con­fined to those sub­jects where the fac­ul­ties of the mind, aside from mem­o­ry, find lit­tle chance for devel­op­ment. For a year pupils spend long hours in end­less drill on the rules of gram­mar, on declen­sions and con­ju­ga­tions, and on the per­plex­i­ties of syn­tax. It is not strange, there­fore, that numer­ous attempts have been made to assist the begin­ner to an oppor­tu­ni­ty now and then for refresh­ing his mind, and at the same time for apply­ing his new acquirements.

Those have suc­ceed­ed best, I believe, who have kept most close­ly to the things of antiq­ui­ty, described in the lan­guage of ancient Rome. Pupils rec­og­nize the mod­ern tone of present-day top­ics dis­cussed in Eng­lish-like Latin, and they are not sat­is­fied, nor are they much helped.

The Fables in this Read­er are the old ones, sim­pli­fied for begin­ners. The Short Sto­ries, gath­ered here and there, have also been freed from dif­fi­cul­ties. The Tales of Ear­ly Rome are from Livy and have been adapt­ed to pupils who have not yet gone far along the course. And, final­ly, although the selec­tion from Ovid has been turned into prose and shorn of its gram­mat­i­cal dif­fi­cul­ties, it is believed that the charm of the sto­ry itself has not suffered.