NEW LATIN GRAMMARS.* MOST of our readers, certainly all our
scholastic readers, are aware that there was a revolt some years ago against the domination of The Public School Latin Primer. Simultaneously there was a movement for free-trade, some would say anarchy, in the matter of grammars. The consequence has been a con- siderable activity in grammar-making. Eton has produced an article for her own consumption, with the quality of which the outside world must be supposed to have no concern. (We may be allowed, in passing, to regret, on account of the general con- venience, that the authorities have been so reactionary as to return to the old, unreasonable, and inconvenient order of the cases.) Without reckoning this, we have three books now before us. Professor Kennedy has revised The Public School Latin Primer, and given it, for the first time, the acknowledged authority of his name. The result, we may say at once, seems to us, on the whole, satisfactory. The old Primer was a great improvement—experio credite—both as regards theory and practice, on the grammars which it superseded, and the revision is a generally satisfactory answer to the complaints which were made against the Primer, complaints generally referring to matters of arrangement, and to the difficulty of the technical terms employed.
One naturally begins by asking,—" What does a Primer profess to do ? For what class of learners is it intended ?" Properly speaking, it should be the book first put into a child's hands, when he or she begins to learn the language. As a matter of fact, it is the manual which a schoolboy (we drop the double designation, but only for convenience' sake) will retain in use till he reaches the highest form. And we might add that he will probably not begin to use it till he has mastered the elements. For obvious reasons, Dr. Kennedy dropped from his title the words " Public School." Now that the Head-Masters of the Conference have sanctioned the use of the book, they might advantageously be restored. They would conveniently differentiate the book from a Primer properly so called. Boys of the age at which it is now commonly the practice to begin Public School life ought to be able to use Dr. Kennedy's book with advantage. It is in view of this fact, we may suppose, that he has made a great and profitable change in its arrangement. He has incorporated in the text much valuable matter that was formerly relegated to an appendix, and still further obscured by the use of a for- bidding-looking type. The appendices now contain nothing that may not fairly be placed there,—namely, articles on "Divided and Compounded Words," "Roman Money, Weights, Measures, and Time," and " Figures of Speech," with the " Memorial Lines of Gender." This last change will probably be questioned ; our own opinion inclines to approval. Boys must learn the genders of names by practice ; when they have had this practice, they will find the memorial lines a very use- ful summary of the experience which they have gained. But while we generally approve of the incorporation of the appendix matter in the text, we cannot but think that the change makes the book less fit for early use. Professor Postgate has adopted the opposite method. He divides his new Primer into two parts, which he terms " Elementary " and " Supplementary." There is much to be said in favour of this plan. Of course, the distinction is of a kind that it is not easy to • (1.) The Revised Latin Primer. By Beniamin Hall Kennedy, D.D. London. Longmans. 18-8.—(2.) The New Latin Primer. Edited by J P. Postgate. M.A , with the co-operation of C. A. Vince, M.A. London : Cassell and Co. 1858 (3.) A Latin G earnmar for Schools. By E. A. Sonnenschein, M.A. Part I., "Accidence." London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co. 1888. keep to in practice, nor would it be difficult to make objections to the actual division of matter. Some " elementary " matters can scarcely be so described,—e.g., the eight divisions of adverbial clauses, or the discussion of the " Conditional State- ment." Some of the "supplementary" matter might, one would say, have been given earlier with advantage. We find, for instance, in Part II. the " Principal Parts of Verbs." This is at least a reversal of the usual order of things. Teachers may have been wrong in their practice, but that practice has certainly been to make the learning of these " principal parts " by heart a very early lesson. Indeed, the practical utility of the knowledge is obvious, in the finding-out of words, for instance, in the dictionary. A more appropriate matter for the supplement is the list of substantives and adjectives of the third declension, a very useful addition to the ordinary apparatus of grammars, for which Professor Postgate will receive the thanks of teachers. Uncommon words are very properly " obelised," and here we may generally express our sense of the care and labour which the author has expended in compressing into a small compass a great quantity of useful matter. There is little or nothing put in that is not of practical importance, and certainly not much omitted that might reasonably be looked for.
We do not care to enter upon the invidious task of a general comparison of the two Primers. Probably the choice between them will be mainly determined by the difference of arrange- ment already spoken of. But, while still retaining a preference, due, it may be, to prepossession, for the work of the older scholar, we may give a word of special praise to Professor Post- gate's arrangement and statement of syntax. Nor must we pass over without notice his lucid exposition of the difficult subject of pronunciation and spelling, and the excellent article on " Oratio Obliqua." In the subdivision of " Indirect Questions in Reported Speech," he is certainly more satisfactory than Professor Kennedy, who contents himself with the rule that " Indirect Questions in the First or Third Person are generally expressed by the Accusative and Infinitive," while adding the explanation that " such questions are really statements put for rhetorical effect in an Interrogative form." In The New Latin Primer, on the contrary, we have the more correct statement that "Real Questions, in which information is asked for, are put in the Infinitive if of the First or Third Person, in the Subjunctive if of the Second Person," but that " Rhetorical Questions, which are only asked for the sake of effect, and to which no answer is expected, are generally put in the Infinitive of all persons.'
We do not think that Professor Postgate's treatment of the pronouns is sufficiently full. The declensions are duly given in the " Elementary" part, while the usage is relegated to the " Supplementary," and there is compressed into something less than a page. It would have been convenient to arrange them in the order of definiteness, a plan which, we believe, is a great help to fixing their usage in the memory. If this had been done, we should not have had the important quidam altogether omitted. It would have been well to state a little more distinctly the usage of quisquam. The rule that it is employed in negative or virtually negative sentences is sufficiently near the truth to be useful to a learner. He may acquaint himself with the exceptions later on. We notice that domorum is given as the prevalent form of the genitive plural of domes. According to the dictionaries, it is found in Lucretius and twice in Virgil ; while dontuum occurs in prose, but not, as it happens, in Augustan prose. With a new edition Professor Postgate must give us an index.
Professor Sonnenschein adopts the principle of " one single grammar for the whole school," and uses, to distinguish the three kinds of matter severally suitable to three stages of learning, three different forms of type. As his work is still incomplete (the Syntax is to appear early this year), and as it can be best judged as one of the " Parallel Grammar Series" to which it belongs, we may postpone any further consideration of it. But it did not seem right to omit altogether the mention of so meritorious a work in a notice of " New Latin Grammars."
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