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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
and which should not he made to give way to these , especially in our ordinary grammar schools , the time spent at which is not sufficient to make polished scholars , hut which might he rendered available to a general acquaintance with the classics and the rules by which they are to be rendered into English , nay , in many cases , to the understand * , ing of Latin at least , without the intervention of translation .
The little book before us is , we think , founded on a correct view of school-boy necessities , and the general wants of society : for let no one imagine from its title that this is one of those most absurd manuals which pretend to teach the accidence of a dead language in that language , with harsh , and crabbed construing of its barbarous . Latin . After you quit the title-page , with the exception of preter affixed to the past tenses r you find not a single word of Latin that , ought to be ^ or
could be , English . Even the favourite vel is changed into ks correspondent or * . It is truly * Initia Latina . ' Its definitions are clear , simple , and short ; its rules few and plain ; exceptions , those dreadful bores to weak heads and short memories , ininitio , are most kindly and properly left for after study ,, to be taught by the master , experience , or
the dictionaries , as the case may be . Its , object is to impress on the mind of the learner those few general principles of the language on which minuter knowledge may , if necessary , be afterwards founded : this is right .. The broad outline must first be ; drawn , however men may afterwards proceed to fill it up with : the details which distinguish . the mind of the finished classic .
The author has most unceremoniously cut down ' the parts of speech , ' like so many rotten boroughs . He says , ' the words of the Latin language are divisible into three classes , —nouns , verbs , and particles . ' We thank him for his radicalism ; but warn him to beware of his Alma Mater . Let him not whisper his heresy on the banks of the Cam . Oxford may receive his declaration , as an argument for the Trinity , for it will soon , if we mistake not the signs of the times , be in want of argument to prop up that doomed mystery .
The examples of the declension of nouns are , as they should be , numerous , and the remarks appended to them for the most part excellent . We would , however , submit whether the following and similar expressions be good : — The first declension makes the nominative singular to end in a , and the genitive in & . ' ( The declension makes , ' we knowis legitimate ; but the author can afford to lay aside legitimacy for clearness and correctness . He has shown that he ia not tied to established forms because they are established .
As will already have been supposed , pronouns are classed under the head of nouns . Verbs are well defined : — 'the verb declares existence ^ action ,- or suffering . ' The common division of tenses is followed ; but another triad would be useful , —the past , the present , and the future ; and if further distinction be necessary to mark past time more accurately , it might be so made as to leave the natural division of time clear to the mind of the pupil . Particles , under which are included adverbs , conjunctions , prepositions , and interjections , close the first part of the * Initia Latina . ' The second part consists of * Illustrations of- Syntax , Section the First , and Illustrations of Syntax , tra ns ^ lated . ' It contains those rules which are of principal importance in translating , with copious examples under each rule , and jadi- »
Untitled Article
ttritidltlNottees . —Iriitia Latina . $ &l
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1832, page 357, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1812/page/69/
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