The Art of Reading Latin:  How to Teach it

William Gardner Hale, professor of Latin in Cornell University
Boston:  Ginn & Co., 1887

Preface

The method of teaching herein advocated started, many years ago, from a desire to know Latin literature, and an impatience with the actual amount of reading power attained by a college course.  At the outset there existed a conviction that the modern mind could not be so degenerate as to be incapable of reading Latin as the Romans read it, that is to say, in the Roman order, in the Roman medium, and at a rate of speed which would not be intolerably slow in the reading of a modern tongue.  The nature of the aim dictated the method to be employed;  and the employment of the method proved the soundness of the original conviction.

The writer has for some years intended to publish an account of this method, as it has shaped itself in practical experience with successive classes.  First, however, he desired to present it orally before a number of gatherings of teachers.  As a beginning, accordingly, the address with the pamphlet opens was read before the Holiday Conference of the Associated Academic Principals of the State of New York, held in Syracuse in December last.  The interest with which the paper was received was so kindly, and the requests that it be published without further delay were so pressing, that it seemed best not to hold to the former intention.

William Gardner Hale, professeur de Latin à l'Université Cornell

Ginn & Co., Boston 1887

Préface

La méthode d'enseignement ici préconisée est née, il y a de nombreuses années, d'un désir de connaître la littérature latine, et du refus d'accepter le niveau de lecture atteint de facto dans l'enseignement supérieur. Le point de départ fut la conviction que l'esprit moderne ne pouvait être si dégénéré qu'il fût incapable de lire le latin comme le lisaient les Romains : dans l'ordre des mots romain, sur le support des Romains, et à une cadence qui ne fût pas d'une lenteur intolérable par rapport à celui de la lecture d'une langue vivante. La nature du but dicta la méthode à employer ; et l'emploi de la méthode prouva la solidité de la conviction initiale.

L'auteur projetait depuis quelques années de publier un bilan de cette méthode, telle qu'elle s'est elle-même façonnée dans une expérience pratique avec des classes successives. Mais auparavant, il souhaitait la présenter oralement devant une réunion de maîtres. En conséquence, devant la Conférence de Vacances de l'Association Académique des directeurs des études de l'Etat de New York, qui se tint à Syracuse en décembre dernier, fut lue, pour commencer, l'allocution liminaire de cette brochure. Cette communication fut reçue si favorablement, et les demandes qu'elle fût publiée sans plus de délai furent si pressantes, qu'il lui parut préférable de ne pas s'en tenir à son premier projet.

Though no explicit suggestions will be found in regard to the teaching of Greek, the substance of the method of course applies alike to either language.

I am under a debt to many of my students of recent years, whose support of the method, though it was taken up by them under the sore necessity of an entire revolution of confirmed mental habits, has supplied me with the confidence that comes from concrete results.  But I am under especial obligations to my sister, Miss Gertrude Elisabeth Hale, both for suggestions made earlier as a result of her own experience (the device mentioned on page 13 originated, so far as my own case goes, with her) and for a searching criticism of the proof of the present pamphlet, from the point of view of a preparatory teacher.

ITHACA, APRIL 18, 1887.

On n'y trouvera aucune suggestion explicite quant à l'enseignement du grec, mais, bien sûr, la substance de la méthode s'applique de la même manière à l'une et l'autre langue.

J'ai une dette particulière envers nombre de mes étudiants de ces dernières années qui, en soutenant cette méthode, et bien qu'il l'eussent adoptée avec la douloureuse nécessité d'un complet bouleversement d'habitudes mentales bien établies, m'ont insufflé la confiance que procurent les résultats concrets. Je suis cependant particulièrement obligé envers ma sœur, Mlle Gertrude Elisabeth Hale, à la fois pour ses suggestions faites dans les premiers temps et issues de sa propre expérience (le dispositif mentionné p. 13, vient, en ce qui me concerne, d'elle), et pour une critique attentive de la validité de la présente brochure aux yeux d'un professeur de classes préparatoires.

ITHACA, 18 AVRIL 1887.

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE ASSOCIATED ACADEMIC PRINCIPALS OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, DECEMBER 28, 1886.
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The attacks which have been made of late upon the study of Greek and to some extent upon the study of Latin have had at their backs the conviction that the results obtained are very much out of proportion to the years of labor spent upon these languages by the schoolboy and the college student.  The danger which threatens classical study to-day in this country is due in large part to the fact that this conviction is a sound one.  If the case were different, if the average college graduate were really able to read ordinary Greek and Latin with speed and relish, the whole matter would be on a very different footing from that on which it now lamely stands.

COMMUNICATION PRONONCEE DEVANT L'ASSOCIATION ACADEMIQUE DES DIRECTEURS DES ETUDES DE L'ETAT DE NEW YORK LE 28 DECEMBRE 1886.
 

Les attaques qu'on lance depuis peu contre l'étude du grec, et dans une certaine mesure contre l'étude du latin ont leur origine dans la conviction que les résultats obtenus sont complètement dérisoires par rapport aux années de labeur passées sur ces langues par le collégien et l'étudiant. Le danger qui menace les études classiques aujourd'hui dans ce pays est dû en grande partie au fait que cette conviction est fondée. Si la situation était différente, si le diplômé moyen sortant de l'université savait vraiment lire à livre ouvert et en y trouvant du plaisir le grec et le latin courants, tout le problème reposerait sur des bases bien autrement fermes.

To learn to read Greek and Latin with speed and relish, and then, if one’s tastes turn towards literature or art of any kind, to proceed to do so;  to come to know familiarly and lovingly that great factor in the record of the thinking and feeling of the human race, the literatures of Greece and Rome, – that is an aim which we should all set before our students.  But, speaking generally, our students, yours and mine, do not come to love those literatures.  Perhaps they tolerate them, perhaps they respect them.  But to love them and to make them a substantial part of the intellectual life, – that is a thing which many a student, fitted therefor by natural taste and ability, fails to accomplish, and never so much as knows his loss.  This seems to me, looking at the long years of study given to Greek and Latin, and the great emphasis put upon them in the requirements for admission to our colleges, a very sad business.

Apprendre à lire le grec et le latin aisément et avec plaisir, et ensuite, si on commence à apprécier la littérature ou l'art sous quelque forme que ce soit, continuer cette pratique ; en arriver, familièrement et amoureusement, à connaître cet élément essentiel du développement de la pensée et du sentiment dans l'histoire de l'humanité que représentent les littératures de la Grèce et de Rome, voilà un but que nous devrions tous proposer à nos élèves. Mais, en général, nos élèves, les vôtres et les miens, n'en viennent pas à aimer ces littératures. Peut-être les tolèrent-ils, peut-être les respectent-ils. Mais les aimer, et en faire une part substantielle de leur vie intellectuelle, est une chose que bien des élèves, doués naturellement pour cela de par leur goût et leurs capacités, ne parviennent pas à accomplir, et sans même se rendre compte de ce qu'ils perdent. Cela me semble, lorsque je considère les longues années d'étude données au grec et au latin, et l'importance qu'on leur prête pour l'admission da ns nos universités, une bien triste affaire.

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Now the blame of it all must be divided among three parties, – the Greek and Latin languages themselves, the teachers in the preparatory schools, and the teachers in the universities.  The first of these guilty parties are out of our reach.  They are difficult languages;  but difficult languages they must remain.  That leaves the practical whole of the responsibility to be divided between the teachers in the preparatory schools and the teachers in the universities, or, to take concrete examples, for the purpose of our conference, between you and me. Which of us is the more to blame, I will not attempt to say.  But so much I will say, and from my sure observation:  that the influence upon the formation of intellectual character by the teachers who prepare young men for college is nearly ineffaceable.  The boy who comes to college with a thinking habit is capable of learning to read Latin (for I must now confine myself to that topic, though the whole substance of what I have to say applies with equal force to the teaching of Greek) with ease and speed;  the boy who comes without the habit has faults that a college course can rarely cure.  That the boy should be taught to think before he comes to college is, then, from the point of view of the study of Latin, the one indispensable thing.  That it is so from every other point of view as well, makes our case so much the stronger.

But one thing more is also indispensable sooner or later for a high success (and there is in Latin but one success), namely, that the method which the boy is taught to use in his thinking be the right one, – the result of the most careful observation of the practical difficulties to be overcome, and the most careful study of the best ways of overcoming them.

As we group these difficulties, placing them in the order in which they would be felt by a beginner, we find them to be: –
1.  The vocabulary.
2.  The system of inflections.
3.  The elaborate use of this system of inflections to express meaning, in place of our simpler modern methods of using prepositions, auxiliaries, and the like:  or, in a single word, syntax.

I suppose the beginner would think that these three difficulties covered the whole ground, and that if he had his vocabulary and his inflections secured, and understood what is called syntax, he could then read Latin with great ease.  But he would be very wrong.  The most formidable difficulty has not been mentioned.  The Latin sentence is constructed upon a plan entirely different from that of the English sentence.  Until that plan is just as familiar to the student as the English plan, until, for page after page, he takes in ideas as readily and naturally on the one plan as on the other, until, in short, a single steady reading of the sentence carries his mind through the very same development of thought that took place in the mind of the writer, he cannot read Latin otherwise than slowly and painfully.  So, then, an absolutely essential thing to a man who wants to read Latin is: –
4.  A perfect working familiarity with the Latin ways of constructing sentences.

Now we teach the first three things more or less effectively, – vocabulary, inflection, syntax.  Do we teach the last?

1. Le vocabulaire.
2. Le système flexionnel.
3. La manière complexe dont ce système flexionnel est utilisé en vue d' exprimer des idées en lieu et place de la simplicité de nos procédés modernes qui usent de prépositions, d'auxiliaires et du reste : en un mot, la syntaxe.

Je suppose que le débutant pensera que ces trois difficultés sont les seules, et qu'une fois le vocabulaire et la flexion assimilés, il pourra lire le latin avec une grande facilité. Erreur profonde. La difficulté la plus formidable n'a pas encore été mentionnée. La construction de la phrase latine différe totalement de celle de la phrase anglaise. Tant que cette construction ne sera pas aussi familière à l'étudiant que la construction anglaise, tant que, page après page, notre étudiant n'absorbera pas les idées aussi directement et aussi naturellement dans l'une des constructions que dans l'autre, bref, tant qu'une seule lecture de la phrase du premier mot au dernier ne mènera pas son esprit au long du même développement de pensée que celui qui s'est manifesté dans l'esprit de l'auteur, notre étudiant ne pourra lire le latin qu'avec lenteur et difficulté. Ainsi, voici ce qui est absolument indispensable à l'homme désireux de lire le latin :

4. Une familiarité jamais démentie avec les procédés de construction de la phrase latine.

Aujourd'hui, nous enseignons les trois premières difficultés plus ou moins efficacement, - vocabulaire, flexion, syntaxe. Enseignons-nous la dernière ?

I turn to the "First Latin Books," in order to find what is said to students at that most critical period in their study of the language, – the beginning.  I remember well how I was taught at Phillips Exeter Academy – of revered memory – to attack a Latin sentence.  "First find your verb, and translate it," said my teacher.  "Then find your subject, and translate it.  Then find the modifiers of the subject, then the modifiers of the verb,"  etc., etc.  Well, I had got more than four years beyond Exeter before I learned to read Latin with any feeling but that it was a singularly circuitous and perverted way of expressing ideas, which I could not expect to grasp until I had reformed my author’s sentences and reduced them to English.  Since my time, however, better ways may have come into vogue.  So I turn to the books of two scholarly gentlemen of my acquaintance, – practical teachers, too, – namely, Mr. Comstock, of Phillips Andover Academy, and Dr. Leighton, of the Brooklyn Latin School.   On page 233 of Mr. Comstock’s "First Latin Book," and pages 211 and 212 of Dr. Leighton’s "First Steps in Latin," I find distinct rules, essentially the same, for the operation in question.  The former begin as follows: –

Here is a new departure, an entire revolution since my day.  I was taught to find first the predicate.  A change so radical, a method so exactly the opposite of the old one, ought to lead to results the opposite of the old;  namely, to the power to read Latin easily instead of with difficulty.  So, with a cheerful heart, I take up a simple sentence in the fourth oration against Catiline, 3.5, and try my new method.

1. Dans chaque phrase simple, trouvez et traduisez
   1. Le sujet
   2. Le prédicat

Voilà un nouveau départ, une complète révolution par rapport à mon époque. Un changement si radical, une méthode si diamétralement opposée à l'ancienne, devrait conduire à des résultat à l'opposé de l'ancienne, à savoir: pouvoir lire le latin aisément, et non avec difficulté. Donc, le coeur gonflé de reconnaissance, je prends une phrase simple dans la quatrième Catilinaire, 3, 5, et j'essaie ma nouvelle méthode.

Haec omnia indices detulerunt.  I look for my subject.  Fortunately, it lies right at hand.  It is haec, nom. pl.  Next I translate it, these;  or, since it is neuter, these things.  Then I proceed to find the verb, which, again is obvious, viz., detulerunt, in 3d person pl., agreeing with the subject haec.  Perhaps I have caught from somewhere the happy idea of not looking words up in the dictionary until I have tried my hand at them.  So, very properly, I set out with the simplest meaning I can think of, viz., brought.  Now I am well started:  These things brought.  Next I look for the modifiers of the subject, and find omnia.  I build it on, and have now "all these things" for my subject, – all these things brought.  Next I look for the modifiers of the predicate, and I find indices, witnesses, acc. pl., object of the verb.  Everything is straight.  All these things brought the witnesses.  I pass on, and when I come to the class-room, and the teacher calls on me, I read out, All these things brought the witnesses, prepared to parse it to the last word, – only to be told that I am entirely wrong.¹

Now, a Roman boy of my age, and much less clever than I, if he could have smuggled himself into the senate that day, would have understood what those four words meant the instant Cicero uttered the last of them, detulerunt.  What is the difference between us?  Each of us, he and I, knew substantially the meaning of each word, each of us could inflect, each of us knew all the syntax required.  Yet I missed the idea, while he got it.  Wherein did he beat me?  Why, simply here:  I, following the direction of my teachers, first found my subject, and settled on haec.  The Roman boy did not know whether haec was subject or object.  He only knew it as haec.  I knew that detulerunt was the verb, and so did he when it arrived.  I knew that omnia agreed with the subject haec, while he only surmised that it belonged with haec, whatever that might prove to be.  I knew that indices was the object, while he only felt that indices was subject or object, and that it was the opposite of haec omnia (apposition being out of the question), being object if that should turn out to be subject, and subject if that should turn out to be object.  Then he heard detulerunt, and with that word everything dropped into place as simply as, in Milton’s sentence following,

the last word resolves our momentary suspense in regard to the relation of orb and artist;  which relation would have been precisely reversed, had we found such a word, e.g., as glads.

... la lune, dont l'orbe
A travers sa lentille l'artiste toscan voit,

le dernier mot résout notre interrogation momentanée au sujet de la relation entre orbe et artiste, relation qui aurait pu précisément être renversée si nous avions trouvé un mot comme, par exemple réjouit.

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Let us try the method further.  Mr. Comstock goes on (the italics are in part my own): –

But what is the order of their importance, and how am I to start?  With the connective, I presume.  We will suppose it to be ut.  But how shall I translate it?  There are some half-dozen or more "meanings":  in order to, so that, when, as, considering, although.  Which does it have here?  I cannot tell.  No more could a Roman.  But the difference is, that a Roman did not want to tell which one of its forces ut had here, but waited until something in the rest of the sentence, perhaps twenty, perhaps fifty, words away, informed him;  while I am bidden, so to speak, to toss up a cent, and start off upon a meaning, with the odds heavily against me;  possibly to find my mistake and go back and correct it, more probably to add error on error in order to "make sense," and so to get the whole thing into a hopeless muddle.

2. Dans une phrase coordonnée, traduisez chaque proposition indépendante comme s'il s'agissait d'une phrase simple. S'il y a des propositions subordonnées, traduisez-les dans l'ordre de leur importance. Une proposition subordonnée, ou proposition dépendante, est une proposition qui, tout comme en anglais, détermine l'un ou l'autre aspect de la proposition principale (comme expliqué au paragraphe 42 page 12). Une proposition introduite par un mot latin signifiant si, qui, que, parce que, depuis que, bien que, quand, après que, pendant que, etc. est dépendante : il faut la laisser de côté tant que l'on n'a pas trouvé le sens de la proposition principale.
3. Dans une phrase complexe, traduisez d'abord la proposition principale comme une phrase simple ; traduisez ensuite les propositions subordonnées selon les consignes données au point (b)

Mais quel est ce fameux ordre d'importance, et par où dois-je commencer ? Par le mot subordonnant, je présume. Supposons qu'il s'agisse d'un « ut ». Mais comment vais-je le traduire ? Le mot compte au moins une demi-douzaine de 'sens' : « afin de, si bien que, lorsque, comme, étant donné que, à supposer que [marquant une opposition] ». Quel sens a-t-il ici ? Je suis bien incapable de le dire. Un Romain en était tout aussi incapable. Mais la différence est qu'un Romain n'éprouvait nul besoin de dire quelle était ici la valeur de « ut » : il attendait que quelque chose dans le reste de la phrase, vingt ou cinquante mots plus loin, peu importe, lui permette de le savoir ; tandis qu'à moi, pour ainsi dire, on demande, de lancer une pièce en l'air et de choisir un sens quand les chances sont contre moi ; je trouverai peut-être mon erreur, et alors je reviendrai en arrière et je corrigerai, mais il est plus probable que je ferai erreur sur erreur en vue de 'trouver un sens', et qu'il n'en résultera finalement qu'un méli-mélo sans issue.

Now, all this is wrong.  It is a frightful source of confusion to prowl about here and there in the sentence in a self-blinded way that would seem pathetic to a Roman, looking at things without the side-lights afforded to him by the order;  and, further, it is a frightful waste of time.  Take a sentence such as often occurs, e.g., the opening of the third oration against Catiline, delivered before the people.  Imagine, now, two scenes:  on the one hand the Roman Forum, on Dec. 3, 63 BC, with a mass of men and boys listening to Cicero as he tells the story of the entangling of the conspirators remaining in Rome;  on the other, a modern schoolroom, say in the Syracuse High School (though I hope I am about to slander Dr. Bacon), Dec. 3, 1886 AD.  In the former case  Cicero has the floor, as we say;  in the latter case, Dr. Bacon’s assistant, book in hand, his pupils before him.  Both audiences want to get at the same thing, – what Cicero has to say.  In the first scene, Cicero proceeds: – Rem publicam, Quirites, vitamque omnium vestrum, bona, fortunas, coniuges liberosque vestros, atque hoc domicilium clarissimi imperi, fortunatissimam pulcherrimamque urbem, hodierno die deorum immortalium summo ergo vos amore, laboribus consiliis periculis meis, e flamma atque ferro ac paene ex faucibus fati ereptam et vobis conservatam ac restitutam videtis.

When he has said that, every soul that has heard him knows precisely what he means.  Now change to the Syracuse High School.  The teacher says, "first find your subject."  So we run on, scenting out a subject: –

Rem publicam, Quirites, vitamque omnium vestrum, bona, fortunas, coniuges liberosque vestros, atque hoc domicilium clarissimi imperi, fortunatissimam pulcherrimamque urbem, hodierno die deorum immortalium summo ergo vos amore, laboribus consiliis periculis meis, e flamma atque ferro ac paene ex faucibus fati ereptam et vobis conservatam ac restitutam videtis.

Well, we are through with the entire sentence, and there is no subject!  Of course, then, it is implied in the verb, and that is the 2d person pronoun, in the plural.  Next we find our verb.  That is, as it happens, the last word, videtis.  Then we go back, do we, and find the modifiers of the subject, and then the modifiers of the verb?  No, I say to all that.  We have already, if we have been rightly brought up, understood everything in that sentence by the time we reach the last syllable of it, without having thought meanwhile of a single English word;  and we are as ready in 1886 to go on immediately with the next sentence as we should have been if we had been Romans in the Roman Forum on that day in 63 BC.  Or, to put it another way, the boy who, reaching that oration in the course of his preparation for college, cannot understand that particular sentence, and a great many much more difficult sentences in the oration, from reading it straight through once in the Latin, nay, from merely hearing his teacher read it straight through once in the Latin, has been wrongly trained, is wasting time sadly, out of a human life all too short, and, so far from being on the direct way to read Latin with speed and relish, and then to proceed to do so, is on the direct way to drop it just as soon as the elective system of his particular college will allow, and, if he cares for literature, to go into some language in which it is not necessary, first to find the subject, and then the predicate, and then the modifiers of the subject, and then the modifiers of the predicate, and then to do the same thing for the subordinate sentence, or, if there are several subordinate sentences, to do the same thing for each one of them in the order of their importance, and then to put these tattered bits together into a patchwork.

Now, it will not do to say that students, by beginning in this way, get, quite early, beyond the need of it.  At any rate, I can testify, from my own experience, that, in spite of the admirable efforts of the schools in "sight-reading," they do not, when they come to Harvard or Cornell.  I allow myself in my class-room – keeping well inside of what is said to be customary among college professors – one jest a year.  When I first meet the new Freshman class (for I could not bear to leave such precious material wholly to the most perfect assistant), I question them:  "Suppose, now, you are set, as you were at the examination for admission the other day, to tell me the meaning of a sentence in a book you never say, – say an oration of Cicero, – how do you proceed to get at the writer’s meaning?"  There is at once a chorus of voices (for they are crammed for that question, having learned printed directions, as we have seen, in the first books they studied), "First find the – SUBJECT," three-quarters of them say;  "PREDICATE," the other quarter.  "Now here," I say to them, "is an unhappy difference of opinion about first principles in a matter of everyday practice, and of very serious importance.  Which is right?"  They do not know.  "Which do you suppose the Romans who heard the oration delivered in the Forum first hunted up, the subject or the predicate?"  That little jest, simple as it is, always meets with great success;  for it not only raises a laugh (of no value in itself), but it shows at once, even to a Freshman, the entire absurdity of trying to read Latin by a hunting-up first of either his subject or his predicate;  and so enlists his sympathy in favor of trying some other way, if any can be shown him.  But, at the same time, it proves to me that the method taught at the most critical of all periods, the beginning, is still wrong.  Only in late years, and very rarely, does some student answer my question with:  "First read the first Latin word without translating it, then the second, then the third, and so on to the end, taking in all the possible constructions of every word, while barring out at once the impossible, and, above all, erring, if anywhere, in the direction of keeping the mind in suspense unnecessarily long, waiting, at least, until a sure solution has been given by the sentence itself."

Yet this is the one method that should everywhere be rigorously used, from the day of the first lesson to the last piece of Latin that the college graduate reads to solace his old age.  Only, the process which at first is at every point conscious and slow, as it was not with the Romans, becomes, in Latin of ordinary difficulty, a process wholly unconscious and very rapid, precisely as it was with the Romans.  Just when the process would become easy for ordinarily simple Latin, if the training were right from the beginning, I cannot say.  In my own experience with college students, all whose habits have to be changed, I find a striking difference to be produced in a single term.  And at the end of two years, when the elective work begins, I now find it entirely practicable for the class to devote itself to the study of the Latin literature in the Latin alone, having nothing to do with version into English except at the examinations;  and I never had so good and so spirited translation, whether at sight or on the reading of the term, as last week, when, for the first time, I held such an examination at the end of a term spent without translation.

To bring the matter into a definite and practical shape, I can best indicate what it seems to me you ought to direct your teachers of Latin to do, mutatis mutandis, by telling you what I myself do from the time when I first meet my Freshmen to the end of the Sophomore year.After my little jest about the Romans hunting up first the subject and then the predicate as Cicero talked to them, or first the predicate and then the subject, whichever one thinks the Roman method may have been, I assure them that "what we have to do is to learn to understand a Roman sentence precisely as a Roman understood it as he heard it or read it, say in an oration, for example.  Now the Roman heard, or read, first the first word, then the second, then the third, and so on, through sentence after sentence, to the end of the oration, with no turning back, with no hunting around.  And in doing this he was so guided all the time, by indications of one kind or another in some way strown through each sentence, that, when the last word of that sentence had been spoken or read, the whole of the meaning had reached his mind.  The process of detecting these indications of meaning was to him a wholly unconscious one.  We moderns, however, of course cannot begin so far along.  What we are to reach finally is precisely this unconsciousness of processes;  but we shall be obliged, for the first few years, explicitly to study the indications, until we come to know them familiarly, one after another.  We must for some time think out, at every point, as the sentence progresses (and that without ever allowing ourselves to look ahead), all those conveyings of meaning, be they choice of word, or choice of order, or choice of case, or choice of mode, or choice of tense, or whatsoever else which at that point sufficed for the Roman mind.  And when these indications – which after all are not so many in number – have come to be so familiar to us that most of them are ready to flash before the mind without our deliberately summoning them, we shall be very near the point at which, in Latin graded to our growing powers, we shall interpret indications unconsciously.  And the moment we do that, we shall be reading Latin by the Roman’s own method."

I take up now – all books being closed – a sentence of very simple structure, of which every word and every construction are familiar, say a certain passage in Livy².   I tell the story of the context:  Two assassins have got admission, on the pretext of a quarrel to be decided, into the presence of Tarquin.  One of them diverts the attention of the king by telling his tale, and the other brings down an axe upon the king’s head;  whereupon they both rush for the door.

In order that the interpretation shall be done absolutely in the order in which a Roman would do it, without looking ahead, I write one word at a time upon the board (as I will again do upon the board before you), and ask questions as I go, as follows : –³ 

Tarquinium.  "What did Livy mean by putting that word at the beginning of the sentence?"  That the person mentioned in it is at this point of conspicuous importance.  "Where is Tarquinium made?"  In the accusative singular.  "What does that fact mean to your minds?"

Afin que la compréhension s'opère dans l'ordre exact où un Romain l'aurait acquise, soit sans rien regarder sinon la séquence déjà lue, je n'écris au tableau qu 'un seul mot à la fois (comme je vais le refaire devant vous), et je pose mes questions au fur et à mesure, comme ceci³ :

Tarquinium. « Quelle était l'idée de Tite-Live quand il a placé ce mot en début de phrase ? » - De mettre en évidence l'importance, à ce moment, de la personne désignée par ce nom. « Quel est le cas de Tarquinium ? » - Accusatif singulier. « Qu'est-ce que ce fait signifie pour vous ? »

Here most of them are somewhat dazed, not being used to that word meaning, the very word that ought constantly to be used in dealing with syntax, or so-called "parsing." So I very probably have to say, "May it mean the duration of time of the act with which it is connected?"  They say, No.  I ask, "Why not?"  Somebody says, Because the name of a person cannot indicate time.  I say, "Give me some words that might indicate time."  They give me dies, noctes, aetatem, etc.  Then I ask, "May it mean extent of space?"  They say, No, give me similar reasons for their answer, and, upon my asking for words that might indicate extent of space, they give me, perhaps, mille passuum, tres pedes, etc.  Then I ask, "May it indicate the extent of the action of the verb, the degree to which the action goes?"  They say, No, for a similar reason.  But when I ask for words that might mean the degree of the action, they commonly cannot tell me, for the reason that, strange to say, the grammars do not recognize such a usage;  though sentences like he walks a great deal every day (multum cottidie ambulat) are even more common than sentences like he walks three miles every day (cottidie tria milia passuum ambulat), and the accusatives mean essentially the same thing in both sentences.  Then I ask, "May it mean that in respect to which something is said, – as regards Tarquin, – the accusative of specification?"  To a question like that, I am sorry to say that a great many always answer yes, for students get very vague notions of the real uses of the accusative of specification.  Somebody, however, may be able to tell me that the name of a person is never used in the accusative of specification, and that in general the use of the accusative of specification, in the days of Cicero and Virgil, was mostly confined to poetry.  "What words were used in the accusative of specification in prose?"  Here I never get an answer, although the list is determinate, short, and important.  So I have to say, "I must add to your working knowledge a useful item;  write in your note-books as follows:  partem, vicem, genus with omne or a pronoun (quod, hoc, id), secus with virile or muliebre, hoc and id with aetatis, the relative quod and the interrogative quid, are used in Latin prose in all periods as accusatives of specification.  Here, then, is a bit of definite information which may enable you, when you first meet one of these words again (you will do so quite early in your first book of Livy), to walk without stumbling through a sentence where you would otherwise trip."  Then I go back to Tarquinium.  "May it be," I ask, "an accusative of exclamation?"  They say, Possibly so.  I say, "possibly yes, though in historical narration you would hardly expect such an exclamation from the historian."  Next I ask, "May it be a cognate accusative?"  To that they answer, No;  telling me, perhaps with some help, that the name of a person cannot be in any sense a restatement of an act, – cannot mean an activity.  "Well, then, what does this accusative case mean?"  By this time a good many are ready to say:  Object of a verb, or in apposition with the object.  But I ask if one thing more is possible, and some one says:  Subject of an infinitive.  "Yes," I answer;  "and one thing more yet?"  Predicate of an infinitive, someone suggests.

"Now," I ask, "what have we learned from all this?  Given the name of a person or persons in the accusative with no preposition, how many and what constructions are possible?"  All are ready now to answer, Object of a verb, or subject or predicate of an infinitive.  "Good," I say.  "Keep those possibilities always fresh in your mind, letting them flash through it the moment you see such a word;  and that having been done, WAIT, and NEVER DECIDE which of these possible meanings was in the mind of the Roman speaker or writer until the rest of the sentence has made the answer to that question perfectly clear.  Now tell me what constructions are possible for an accusative like hiemem."  They answer, duration of time, apposition, object of verb, subject or predicate of an infinitive.  "For an accusative like pedes?"  They answer, extent of space, apposition, object of verb, or subject or predicate of an infinitive.  "For an accusative like multum?"  Extent of action, apposition, object of verb, or subject or predicate of an infinitive.  "For an accusative like vitam?"  Cognate accusative, apposition, object of verb, or subject or predicate of an infinitive.  Now I ask, "Can any one tell me what constructions we may expect if the verb turns out to be some word like doceo or celo?"  They all give the answer, and therewith I have already passed in rapid review practically the whole matter of the accusative constructions;  and, what is more, – and this is vital, – I have done it from a very practical standpoint.  I have not asked a student to "parse" a word after seeing its full connection in the sentence (an exercise which loses four-fifths of its virtue by this misplacement), but I have demanded anticipatory parsing, – I have put my questions in such a way that my students have learned for all accusatives what instantaneous suggestions of the possible parts a word is playing in the sentence they may get, at first sight of the word, from the very nature of the word.

Then I pass on.  "We have our King Tarquin before our eyes, as the person on whom the interest of the sentence centres, and we know that he is the object of an action, or the subject or predicate of an infinitive action;  or, possibly, in apposition with such an object, subject, or predicate.  To proceed, the next word, moribundum, is what and where made?"  Adjective, nom. sing. neut., or acc. sing. masc. or neut.  Don’t smile at all this.  The habit of getting a young student to think all these things out, even where he could not go astray if they were not asked of him, saves many a getting lost in difficult places.  "What is probable about moribundum, as we have it in this particular sentence?"  That it belongs to Tarquinium.  "Right.  Now keep that picture in mind:  Tarquinium moribundum, the King, breathing his last, acted upon or acting.  Now for the next word:  Tarquinium moribundum cum.  What is cum?"  Some say, with perfect readiness, preposition, some say conjunction.⁴   "But," I answer, "if you are used to the right spelling, you know with an instant’s thought that no Roman that ever lived could tell at this point whether it was preposition or conjunction.  In order to tell, you must wait for – what?"  Ablative or verb, they answer.  Then we go on, "Tarquinium moribundum cum qui.  What does qui at once tell us about cum?"  Conjunction. "Right.  What do we know now, with almost absolute certainty, about Tarquinium?  What part of the sentence does it belong to?"  Here, I grieve to say, a chorus of voices always answers, Main verb;  for, in some mysterious way, students arrive at the universities without having learned that the Romans delighted to take out the most important word, or combination of words, from a subordinate introductory sentence, and put it at the very start, before the connective, – a bit of information worth a great deal for practical reading.  That habit of expression I now tell them, and then ask, "Given a sentence beginning with mors si, what do you know?"  That mors is the subject or predicate of the verb introduced by si.  "Given a sentence introduced by Hannibali victori cum ceteri?"  That Hannibali depends on something in the cum-sentence.

Now we go back to our sentence, and the word qui.  "What part of speech is it?"  Relative, they say.  "Or what else?"  I ask.  Interrogative.  "Where is it made?"  Nom. sing. or plur., masc. "If it is a relative, where in the sentence as a whole does its antecedent lie?"  They should answer, Inside the cum-clause.  The cum serves as the first of two brackets to include the qui-clause.  "If, on the other hand, it is an interrogative, what kind of a question is alone here possible?"  Indirect, and in the subjunctive, they answer.  "In that case, what kind of a meaning, speaking generally, must the verb introduced by cum have?"  It must be able to imply asking of some kind.  "Rightly said;  perhaps we may have such a sentence as, When everybody inquired who these men were – Cum qui essent omnes quaererent;  or perhaps we shall find that qui is relative.  The next word is circa, – Tarquinium moribundum cum qui circa.  What part of speech is it?"  Adverb.  "What then may it do?"  It may modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.

We proceed:  Tarquinium moribundum cum qui circa erunt.  "What, now, about circa?"  It modifies erant.  "What was the number of qui?"  Plural.  "Was it relative or interrogative?"  Relative. "How do you know?"  Because erant is not subjunctive.  "Right.  Now qui circa erant is as good as a noun or a pronoun, – an indeclinable noun or pronoun, in the plural.  Think of it in that way, as we go on.  Tarquinium moribundum cum qui circa erant excepissent.  I don’t ask to-day the meaning of the mode of excepissent, because the world is in so much doubt about the question of the history and force of the cum-constructions.  But what was Livy’s meaning in writing the accusative Tarquinium?"  Object of excepissent.  "Yes, and what was the subject of excepissent?"  The antecedent of qui.  "Yes;  or, looking at the matter more generally, the subject was qui circa erant."

"Before going on, what picture have we before us?  What has the sentence thus far said?  This:  See Tarquin, dying!  See the bystanders!  See them pick him up!  Our curiosity is stimulated by the very order.  The next word is illos, – Tarquinium moribundum cum qui circa erant excepissent ...  What does the position of illos, first in the main sentence proper, tell us?"  That the people meant by it are of special prominence at this point.  "Who do you suppose these illos are, these more distant persons, thus set in emphatic balance against Tarquinium, each leading its clause?  The assassins, the whole class say.  "What do we know about Livy’s meaning from the case?"  Now they all answer in fine chorus and completeness, Apposition, object of main verb, or subject or predicate of an infinitive.

We proceed:  Tarquinium moribundum cum qui circa erant excepssent, illos fugientes ...  "What part of speech is fugientes?"  Participle.  "Which one?"  Present active.  "Then you see a running-away going on before your eyes.  What gender?"  Masc. or fem.  "What number?"  Plural.  "Then you see some two or more men or women running away.  What case?"  Nom. or acc.  "On the whole, do you feel sure you know the case?"  Yes;  accusative.  "Belonging to what?"  Illos.  "Why?"  Because of course the assassins, the illos, would run away.  "Yes," I say;  "but it cannot possibly mislead you to wait until there isn’t a shadow of a doubt.  We will go on:  Tarquinium moribundum cum qui circa erant excepssent, illos fugientes lictores ...  Here you have another set of people, the king’s body-guard.  In what case?"  Nom. or acc. plural.  "Which?"  They do not know.  "Well, then, can illos agree with lictores, if you consider forms alone?"  Yes.  "In that case, fugientes would have to go with illos lictores, wouldn’t it?"  Yes.  "But would the lictors run away?"  No.  "Would the assassins?"  Yes.  "Certainly.  Then fugientes does not belong with lictores, and does belong with illos;  and illos seems to be, just as we suspected at first sight of it, the assassins.  However, we must ask ourselves one more question, Is apposition possible between illos and lictores?"  No;  for they are very different people.  "Is any relation of a predicate possible between them?  Can the one be the predicate of an infinitive of which the other is the subject?"  No;  because, as before, they are very different people.  "Still it is possible that lictores is accusative.  If it is, it may be object, in which case illos is necessarily subject, for, as we have seen, they cannot be in apposition;  or, it may be subject, in which case, for the same reason, illos must be object.  In either case, they must be in direct opposition to each other, one of them (we don’t yet know which) being subject, the other, object;  while, if lictores is nom., you still have the same relation, only you know which is subject and which is object.  In any event, you see they are set over against each other, together making subject and object.  Now keep the results of this reasoning ready for the countless cases in which such combinations occur.  Given two nouns like bellum Saguntum:  what are the constructions?"  One is the subject of a verb, and the other the object, and we can’t yet tell which.  "Right.  Now I will give you a still more involved combination, but of a very commonly occurring kind, – quae nos materiem.  What do you make out of that?"  Some clever boy will say, Nos must be the subject of a verb, either finite or infinitive, and quae and materiem are object and predicate-object.  "Good.  Then what kind of meaning does the verb probably have?"  One of calling.  "Right.  The words are from Lucretius, and the verb he used was vocamus.  Treasure up that combination and the meaning of it."