pared to meet the needs of students in Williams College, especially such students as do not continue the study of Latin after the first year in College. Some teachers of Latin have been looking for just such a book. Teachers of English, French, German, and history, who have time for their subjects because the time once devoted to the Classics has been so much reduced, are wont to lament that their students know so little nowadays of classic myth and story, and are so ill equipped to understand and appreciate the references to classical matters which are the very warp and woof of modern literatures. All these teachers are urging that in the first year in College there should be more varied reading, that the reading should not be confined to a single author per term. All these persons will welcome the book before us, edited by the Instructors in Latin in Williams College, particularly since the editors are preparing brief explanatory notes to accompany the text now issued. The selection covers fourteen pieces from Ennius, one from Lucilius, one from Cicero, six from Lucretius, twenty-seven from Catullus, eleven from Vergil, twenty from Horace, three from Tibullus, one from Domitius Marsus, three from Propertius, nine from Ovid, eleven from Phaedrus, six from Seneca tragoedus, one from Lucan, two from Statius, twenty-five from Martial, three from Juvenal, and one or more from Hadrian, Annius Florus, Ausonius, Boethius, etc. No selection from Latin poetry will in all details please persons other than the selecter himself. But on the whole this selection is very good. The pieces from Ennius, for example, include several of the longer passages (Et cita cum tremulis, etc., Nec mi aurum posco, etc., and Haece locutus vocat, etc.). The Lucretian passages include 1.1-30, 62-79; 3.1-30, 894-911, 931-977; 5.988-1010. The Catullus selections include 1-5, 9, 12, 13, 22, 31, 34, 45, 46, 49, 51, 53, 62, 70, 76, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 93, 101, 109. From Vergil we have the Copa, four pieces from the Catalepton, four passages from the Bucolics, and Georgics 2.136-176, 458-515. From Horace we have Carmina 1.1, 3, 5, 8, 9, II, 14, 22, 37; 2.3, 10, 14; 3.9, 13, 26, 30; 4.7; Epodes 2, 16.41-66; and Sermones 1.9 complete. From Martial we find 1.10, 13, 32, 47; 2.11, 16; 3.12, 25, 52; 4.41; 5.8, 9, 34, 43, 49, 56, 58; 7.83; 8.10, 69; 9.15, 68; 10.62; 12.29. Here, certainly, is variety enough; here, too, is evidence that the selection has been made with good judgment. The book is a delight to the eye. I shall look forward with much interest to the Notes which, as said above, the editors are preparing. Turning from author to author every few pages is for first year College students no easy task. Our editors have an excellent opportunity to show sound pedagogical skill, and an equally great opportunity to do much for the students who will use this book, in the way of aiding them to appreciation of widely THE ADELPHOE IN LATIN AT SMITH COLLEGE A writer in a recent classical magazine-not THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY-hints that salvation is to come to us by the presentation of classical dramas. But he shares with a wide public the impression that the effort of preparation for a Greek play, for example, in the original is in no way compensated for by the result and perhaps there is even a loss to the audience, if not to the players. I doubt that conclusion for Greek tragedy. A recent experience has convinced me of its inapplicability to Roman Comedy. On January 17 the class in Latin Comedy in Smith College, a Sophomore class under Dr. Florence Gragg, presented the Adelphoe of Terence in the original. The parts had been assigned before Christmas and were largely learned in the holidays. In the ten days between the opening of the term and the date of the play, the members of the cast managed to get in two rehearsals of each scene and at the dress rehearsal for the first time went through the play as a whole. Yet they carried their audience with a certainty that I have never seen done with a Latin play in translation. The clearness of their enunciation was far in advance of what they generally give in their mother tongue. The very fact that they had to make themselves understood through the medium of a tongue strange to the ear, however familiar to the eye of the audience, seemed to add force to their expression. It was an informal performance for the edification of the members of the class and their friends. But it was so successful in laying hold of the audience that it opens the question whether more ought not to be done in the same fashion-whether we are not too timorous in assigning to our students the mountainous (?) work of learning lines in Latin and Greek and also so afraid for our own classical reputation that we must train our pupils till they are stale before we will let them give a classical play in the original'. JULIA H. CAVERNO. SMITH COLLEGE. 1 Miss Caverno's conclusions are in harmony, it may be noted, with the experience of Professor C. K. Chase, as described by him in the account which he gave, in THE CLAS SICAL WEEKLY 7.10-12, of a performance of the Captivi of Plautus in the original, at Hamilton College, in June last. In 1907 students of Barnard College gave, under my direction, the last 325 lines of the Phormio, in Latin; next year they In gave the Menaechmi, from 227 to the end, in Latin. neither case did the performance impose great labor on the pupils; the time given to rehearsals was short. The performances went very well; the enunciation was markedly good, so good that teachers of Latin commented favorably upon it. The plays were clearly intelligible, even to freshmen (who had read no Latin comedy at all) and to students no longer studying Latin, and there seemed no evidence in the behavior of the audience that Terence was lacking in vis comica. С. К. Primus Annus aims at interesting the pupil by taking the Class Room as its topic in the very early stages, and a Roman Family in the later. Variety is gained by the introduction of stories from Classical Mythology. The book includes a complete recapitulation of the Accidence and Syntax to be learnt by heart; vocabularies, grouped according to subject-matter; and a considerable number of exercises, so that the use of books containing English will not be necessary. Decem Fabulae are scenes from Roman life and Ancient Mythology. The grammatical scope is the same as that of Primus Annus, and the plays are so graduated that they can be taken at definite intervals in the first year. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH 35 West 32nd Street, NEW YORK READING CICERO A college professor has said: "As regards the subject matter of authors read, I believe our secondary schools quite generally make one very serious omission. They fail to emphasize the importance of grasping the narrative or argument of a writer in its continuity. The tendency is to read simply from day to day. Too little effort-often none at all-is made to bring successive lessons into relation, to show the bearings and connection of the different parts of a narrative or speech. How few pupils after reading a book of Cæsar or an oration of Cicero have in their minds any clear and consistent picture of the course of the thought, the line of argument, its strength and defects, or appreciate the real drift of the piece as a whole!"- The Teaching of Latin and Greek in the Secondary School. pages 133 and 134. The schools in which Tunstall's Cicero is used are not subject to the above criticism. Proof of this statement may be found by referring to Tunstall's notes on any of the orations. This is one of many features which contribute to the preeminence of the Tunstall Cicero. Tunstall's Cicero, Six Orations, 435 pages, $1.00 Tunstall's Cicero, Eleven Orations, 616 pages, $1.20 THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY is published by The Classical Association of the Atlantic States, weekly, on Saturdays, from October 1 to May 31 inclusive, except in weeks in which there is a legal or school holiday, at Barnard College, Broadway and 120th St., New York City. All persons within the territory of the Association who are interested in the language, the literature, the life and the art of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, whether actually engaged in teaching the Classics or not, are eligible to membership in the Association. Application for membership may be made to the Secretary-Treasurer, Charles Knapp, Barnard College, New York. The annual dues (which cover also the subscription to THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY), are two dollars. 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Printed by Princeton University Press, Princeton, N. J. W. F. LITTLE Principal, Battin High School Secretary-Treasurer PROFESSOR CHARLES KNAPP Herbert H. Yeames, Hobart College, Geneva, N. Y. Mr. Charles Breed, Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, N. J. Walter Dennison, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore. Miss Margaret Garrett, Eastern High School, Baltimore, Md. Rev. Mark J. McNeal, S. J., Georgetown University, D. of C. |