In the second year, the aim of gaining in power to read at sight
is constantly held up before the students, and occasional written exercises
in reading at sight are given through the term, while the first exercise
set at the examination at the end of the term is always translation at
sight. A proper supplement to this is an elective in the speaking
and writing of Latin. In the second and third terms of the second
year, which are now devoted to Horace, considerable quantities can be read,
with a good deal of memorizing; and the treatment can be made almost
wholly literary. That carries us through the Sophomore year, and
to the beginning of the elective work, taken by Juniors and Seniors together.
Here translation at the daily lesson ends, except in those rare cases where
the meaning of a difficult passage cannot be given by explaining the grammatical
structure, or by turning the passage into some other form in Latin.
1
Translations are written at occasional exercises held for that purpose
during the term, and always make a part of the final examination, so that
every student feels bound to understand his author. But
the
students are urged not to have anything to do with English in preparation
for their daily lessons or for the final examination, but to read
the Latin
as literature, with the utmost skill in rendering their
author that they can acquire.
In all my teaching, two exercises stand out from the rest, as giving
me special delight through the interest and mental activity of my students:
first, the exercises with the Freshmen, which I have described as carried
on weekly by myself; secondly, an exercise such as I carried on with
an elective class recently, when, at the end of a term spent upon Plautus,
I read a new play straight through in the Latin (the students following
me in their texts), without translation, and with very little comment,
moving at about the rate at which one would move if he were reading a new
play of Shakespeare in a similar way; and felt my audience responsive,
even to the extent of occasional laughter that checked us for a moment,
to nearly everything in our author that would have been intelligible, without
special explanation, in an English translation.
