A Complete Latin Course.—The First Year. By Albert Harkness, Ph.D.
(Bell and Sons.)—We have no fault to find with this manual, beyond expressing a conviction that it would be a very exceptional boy who, beginning Latin, say at nine years of age, should be able on his tenth birthday to construe, "Interim, barbari nuntios in omnes partes dimisersint, paucitatemque nostrorum militum suis praedica- verunt, et quanta in perpetnum sal liberandi facultas daretur, si Romans castris expulissent, demonstraverant." It seems to be carefully arranged and graduated. Though a boy may very well fail to get to the end within the time appointed, he will not fail to be well prepared, as far as he does go. On one point we may offer a remark. Professor Harkness marks many quantities in his Latin words. We take it that no quantities should be marked except such as depend upon what is called " authority." We find in the extract given above the two consecutive words "barbari nentios." Now, this is really absurd. The pupil ought to have had it explained to him that the final syllables of the two words follow a definite rule, and that the u in "nuntios " must be long by position. The only syllable in which the learner might probably go wrong, being misled by the pronuncia- tion of " barbarian," the second a in "barbari," is left without any mark. Elsewhere, we see such a marking as " lex."
Previous page
