scribed for admission to the colleges. Wherever it shall be necessary, the latter part of the book can be associated with such reading, and made a collateral exercise which may be held weekly or semi-weekly. For reasons which have already been stated, the quantity of matter selected could not be reduced to adapt it to the state of particular schools. A sufficient amount to secure the object in view is provided for all who may use the work; and the division of it into courses, which is, to a great extent, arbitrary, may be varied according to circumstances. The successive steps from the first lesson to the last are the same, whatever be the time allotted for preparatory study or the method pursued.

INTRODUCTORY EXERCISES.

At the beginning only so much of the grammar should be committed to memory as is indispensable to the reading of the simplest sentence. The sooner the elements of grammar, which are learned, are put to use the more agreeable and profitable will it be for the learner. As the grammar is, according to our plan, to be taught in several successive courses, with a gradual increase at each time, the first course will scarcely

need comprise more than the regular forms of nouns of the first and second declensions, the corresponding forms of the adjective, two or three examples which most fully represent the third declension of nouns, the more common pronouns, and so much from the verbs as is required for reading a few of the first sentences in the Introductory Exercises. Every thing thus learned from the grammar ought to be exemplified in as many ways as possible from the sentences studied. The words which occur in these sentences will take the place of the examples given in the grammar, as the latter will be neither so interesting nor so well understood as the former. During the study of the Introductory Exercises, the attention of the pupil ought to be directed chiefly not only to etymology, but to its regular forms of declension and conjugation. As the illustration of these will be the principal object of study at first, progress in the knowledge of them will be very nearly in the inverse ratio to progress in reading. It is needless to say, that the portions of the grammar, which are studied at this time, should be so perfectly committed to memory as never to be forgotten. Further details as to the manner of teaching at this period are rendered unnecessary by what will be said below.

FIRST COURSE.

The first business of the teacher, in regard to the Latin selections, will be to give the student a clear apprehension of the words, and the meaning of the sentence. The passage may then be studied anew and committed to memory. In his first attempt to learn it by heart, the pupil need not aim at any thing beyond a moderate degree of perfection. He should next be examined as to his recollection and comprehension of the explanations already given by the teacher. Repetitions of the same lesson from memory should not follow in immediate succession, but at intervals of not less than twenty-four hours. In order to avoid a monotonous formality, the repetition may be conducted, at each time, with a different object in view. All the topics in grammar and all the facts and principles of the Latin language may serve in turn for this purpose, and thus an endless variety may be given to these exercises.

At one time the regular declension of nouns, adjectives and pronouns may be attended to, and all the examples pointed out; at a later period, the more common irregular forms; then the gender of nouns in connection with the general rules, the classification of nouns of the third declension, the form of the genitive, and the euphonic changes of the nominative; the various

classes of adjectives as to declension, comparison and derivation; the difference in form and in signification of similar pronouns, as hic, ille, is, iste, or quis and qui; the comparison of the first and second conjugations of verbs as to the form of their terminations and accent, and the relation of the third conjugation, and then of the fourth to these and to each other, and innumerable topics of the kind which will readily occur to every inventive mind.

After some progress has been made in committing sentences to memory, they can be constantly referred to for illustration in all the lessons on grammar. Soon the pupils themselves will be able to make use of these materials in reading and in private study. It will be no great evil, if some difficulties of grammar or of interpretation should remain after a passage has been recited more than once. As it will pass many times under review, these difficulties will often disappear of themselves. By such a process the mind of the student will necessarily be receiving new light continually. But besides this suggestive influence of repetition, there will be, in each review, a closer study of the original; the new acquisitions, made since the first reading, will be brought to the student's aid; and he will now be able to discover many things in the passage

which escaped him before. The exact signification of a word, its different shade of meaning from the English used in translation, the precise nature and use of the different cases, the import of the subjunctive mode and of particular tenses both in the subjunctive and the indicative, the force of certain prepositions and conjunctions,— all these and many other things will be understood better and better as the student advances, and consequently the simplest classical sentence will become more definite and expressive at each successive review.

The system of reviewing will be varied by the judgment of the teacher, according to the circumstances of the case. Much will depend upon his peculiar mode of teaching. For the sake of definiteness, however, we will present a specimen, which, it is hoped, will not be mistaken for a rule. Every lesson may be reviewed daily for three successive days; afterwards once in two days; then semi-weekly, weekly, semi-monthly, and, at last, monthly. In the following schedule the studies of about a month are represented; the week-days being numbered in order, the lessons, indicated by the letters of the alphabet, being placed on the left, and the reviews of these lessons indicated in the same way, being placed on the right.